


An enochian comedy

by Adara_Rose



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Detectives, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canonical Character Death, Character Death Outside of Castiel or Dean Winchester, Cop Dean, Gore, Grief/Mourning, Happy Ending, M/M, Murder Mystery, Non-Graphic Violence, Reunions, Romance, Serial Killers, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-06
Updated: 2018-09-16
Packaged: 2019-06-06 08:33:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 24,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15190895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Adara_Rose/pseuds/Adara_Rose
Summary: “There is no greater pain than to remember,in our present grief, past happiness.”―Dante AlighieriDetective Dean Winchester is investigating the murder of his brother, Sam. With him for the ride is his partner-in-law, Charlie Bradbury.But it turns out that Sam Wesson, born Winchester, is only the first in a series, and as the body count mounts and the nature of the killings become more and more diabolical, they need help.Enter Castiel Novak, college professor, Dante expert, and the man who once broke a teenage Dean’s heart. And Dean is no more able to resist him now than he was back then.Things are heating up, in more ways than one.A comedy in that it ends sort of happily.





	1. Dearly departed

**Author's Note:**

> I've placed the story in a fictional Lawrence, Kansas. My apologies to anyone who actually lives in Kansas and takes offence.

Dean had probably had too much too drink. It was one of those things; when he felt uncomfortable or out of place, he drank. And he had never felt more out of place than he did this sunny afternoon, surrounded on all sides by the bereaved and feeling like he was lying through his teeth. And he was doing it in a rented tux that made him feel like he wanted to claw his skin off. At least he was reasonably sober.

“You must have been a good friend?” A pretty blonde woman who had mascara tracks all over her face blubbered at him, and Dean considered briefly to tell her the truth. But  _ ‘I hadn’t spoken to him for fifteen years since he beat the shit out of me after finding me in bed with his brother’ _ was just not the sort of thing you say at a wake. Instead he just smiled wanly and raised his glass in a vague gesture that could have meant anything. The woman was swept away in the throng of mourners, and Dean wondered if he had paid enough respects now to make a beeline for the nearest exit. It wasn’t as if he and Gabriel had been friends.

 

Well, they had been once, best friends in fact, before Dean stopped being able to keep it in his pants and Gabriel took offense, but he couldn’t really blame the guy. You don’t want to be friends with the guy who flirts shamelessly with your sister and then sneaks around the back to get banged by your brother.

 

Castiel Novak, man. The bane of Dean’s existence. He was even now, all these years later. From where Dean hid in the corner, he could see Cas clearly where he sat on one of those fancy velvet couches, holding his sister Anna as she cried into his shoulder. Dean did a quick tally in his head and figured Cas to be in his late thirties, and he had grown up  _ good _ . Gorgeous blue eyes, tousled dark hair, broad shoulders, long legs, the sort of ass that Dean’s fingers itched to get a good grip on. Dean hated himself for thinking that - the guy had just lost his brother, for fuck’s sake, and here Dean was wondering what it’d feel like to grip that ass as the man with the ass nailed  _ his  _ ass hard. And all this thinking about asses was not helping matters in the slightest. It just made him feel awful. And horny, go figure. Charlie wasn’t wrong when she called him a manwhore, even if she wasn’t fully aware of which way he really swung. If he knew her right, she was getting suspicious though.

 

Dean went to take another sip of whatever the hell had been in his glass, but found it empty. He made a face and started to make his way over to where the buffet was, aiming for the giant drinks fountain spewing out a concoction that made Dean think of Gozer. Gabriel had probably planned it like that, the asshole. Unfortunately, the shortest route took him past the family, and even though people came up to them all the time to say how sorry they were there was still a lull in traffic when Dean passed. And of course, Castiel looked up just then. His gorgeous blue eyes were red-rimmed, his cheeks wet and flushed. He was so damn beautiful Dean’s heart momentarily forgot to beat. Shit, apparently he was still not over the guy even though it’d been a lifetime since a then-stunning Castiel Novak had walked all over Dean’s brittle heart and out of his life like he didn’t matter.

“D-Dean?” Cas asked, his deep voice rough from crying, “you’re here.” It was a rather stupid thing to say, obviously Dean was there, but hey. No one’s a genius when they’ve just put their brother in the ground.

“Hey, Cas” Dean tried for smoothly casual, but was reasonably sure he failed. “I’m so sorry” he added, realising it was expected of him. Cas’ lips shook as he tried to smile. 

“Thank you” he sniffled. “And thank you for being here.” His sister Anna, who was somewhere between Cas and Dean in age, said nothing. She just gave Dean a look that would have curdled milk. Apparently, she would have rather he be anywhere but there. To be fair, Dean wanted to be anywhere but there. He didn’t fit in.

“I’m just gonna-” Dean started, then stopped. Wasn’t sure what to say. He made another ambiguous gesture with his empty glass. “Can I get you anything?” 

“Please” Castiel rubbed his face. “That’d be nice.” 

 

Dean had just filled two glasses with whatever the hell the pink stuff in the fountain was, when his pants pocket started making one hell of a racket blaring  _ smoke on the water _ . Cursing the phone, timing, and his partner Charlie, he juggled the glasses for the few moments it took to get his phone out and answer.

“Where the hell are you?” Demanded a woman on the other end.

“Hi Dean, how are you on your first day off in weeks? Well Charlie, I’m at a childhood friend’s funeral, what do you think?” He replied sarcastically.

“Shite that’s today?” Charlie’s voice had changed from stressed to horrified. “I’m so sorry! But you need to come here like right now! Dean, I can’t do this on my own! You gotta get here!”

Dean gave up on the glasses and put them down on the table, ignoring how the liquid sloshed out on the fine white tablecloth.

“An address would help” he said as he flashed an apologetic smile at people glaring at him.

“Oh right, sorry, I’m at that field you said was the ultimate place to hookup over by the cluster of trees that look like lightning struck them.”

Considering Charlie usually thought that street names were things that happened to other people and had nothing to do with her, that was a pretty detailed description.

Dean sighed deeply and picked up one of the glasses.

“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes” he said as he made his way over to where Castiel had started crying again. He owed the man a drink.

 

* * *

 

Castiel watched Dean go with curious eyes, even as more tears slipped down his cheeks. He hadn’t seen him for a very long time, and to be fair to see him again at Gabriel’s funeral had been a bit of a shock. But in a good way, Dean was still as beautiful as he had been then and even though the circumstances were tragic he felt his heart beating faster. He couldn’t help but hoping that they’d find some reason to met up again, preferably soon. He wasn’t the man he’d been back when they’d had their thing, and he didn’t think Dean was either. Perhaps these years apart had done them a world of good. Or it might have damaged what they had beyond repair. He didn’t know, but he wanted to find out.

“What the hell was he even doing here?” Anna hissed angrily into his ear, bringing Cas out of his thoughts. “He ditched Gabe years ago!”

Clearly, Gabriel had never confided in Anna about what really had happened that time when everything went tits up. Maybe it was for the best that she didn’t know that the guy she’d been in love with most of her teenage years had been caught with his legs around Cas’ waist, screaming in ecstasy as they- well. Beast with two backs, wasn’t that the expression? It had taken years for Gabriel to forgive him, and he didn’t think that he had ever forgiven Dean. Gabriel could hold a grudge with the best of them.

“Maybe he wanted to pay his respects” he offered in a raspy voice, “they were best friends for years.”

“Some friend” Anna sniffed. “Didn’t even call in all those years.” 

She was right, but Castiel didn’t think he was in any position to judge and neither was she. After all, none of them had the whole story. 

He thought of Gabriel again, the loss bringing fresh tears to his eyes. He couldn’t quite believe that his brother, who had struggled with depression his whole life, had finally lost the battle. That he was gone, never coming back to them. That he had at last given in to the demons that haunted him. 

Gabriel was dead, and it somehow felt like it was his fault.

 

* * *

 

By the time Dean had managed to wrangle his way past afternoon traffic, the sunny skies had decided to turn an ominous dark grey. The first drops started to fall as he parked his car, and he sprinted across the field towards where he could see multiple police cars parked. It was no use; by the time he reached them, the rain had gotten started and he could feel it slip in under the collar of his fancy suit.

“You look nice” Charlie said by way of greeting, then looked chagrined. “Sorry, I forgot” she said, and he rolled his eyes at her.

“You forget I’m made of kryptonite. You can’t harm me, supergirl.”

She laughed, but it was a brittle sound.

“You’re just in time for the big show, dumbass.” Charlie rolled her eyes as they started to walk over to where a filthy white van with an unrecognizable logo stood, Charlie slightly ahead of Dean. “We’re getting ready to open the doors.”

 

The CSI that was standing by the white van’s backdoors and tapping her foot in irritation, turned out to be someone Dean knew well. 

“Hey Jo” he said, flashing his trademark smirk at Joanna Harvelle, who rolled her eyes in response.

“Eyes in your head, Winchester” she ordered, and then added “the buzzing is driving me crazy.”

The van was indeed buzzing, and vibrating slightly.

“Are we sure there isn’t a bomb?”

“Mostly. So you get to open it.” She smirked at him and stepped aside with a flourish. He flipped her the bird in response, then grabbed one of the door handles.

“Everybody down!” Dean yelled and threw the doors open.

There was a moment of stunned immobility, but then every person on the scene was scrambling for cover as something black, seething with rage and buzzing like hell itself, came out of the open doors. The mass swirled around the confused, terrified officers, stinging ruthlessly for several moments before dispersing as if given an unseen command.

“What the hell was that?” Dean yelled when the buzzing had died down to stunned silence. His face was swollen.

“Our evidence, fuck it!” Was Jo’s eloquent reply.

 

* * *

 

Two police officers stood in a muddy field, freezing rain peltering them ruthlessly, and stared into the abyss. At least that’s what Dean thought it was as Jo and one of her colleagues scrambled to put up tarps around the scene. The interior of the van looked like a scene from a nightmare, one he would rather not remember in the morning.

 

A man sat on the floor of the van, hands and feet tied so that he was in a spreadeagle position, unable to defend himself or get himself loose. From the waist down he seemed to be covered in a splotchy white blanket, and Dean really did not want to think of how the blanket moved. His face was so swollen by bee stings that it was impossible to see any real features, and his wrists were rubbed raw from where he had struggled against his bonds. His head hung low, and in the dim light Jim could see that he had shaggy dark hair. Above his head, SAVE ME was written in deep, dark red. 

“Oh my god” Charlie breathed, summing up all their thoughts in one short sentence. 

Dean didn’t reply, just leaned in to have another look at the writhing blanket. Then, in one fell swoop, he realised what he was staring at. 

“Oh god” he managed as he spun around and stumbled a few steps away from the doors.

“Dean?” Charlie’s voice was full of concern, but Dean couldn’t answer her. He leaned forward and threw up, heaving with horror and disgust at the realisation of what he had seen.

Maggots.

The floor of the van - and the victim - was covered in  _ fucking maggots. _


	2. Chapter 2

## “So do we know who he is?” Dean tried to play it cool, but the taste of vomit in his mouth and the look of horror on his face ruined it a bit.

“Sod off Winchester and let me do my job” was Jo’s grim reply. He sodded of, choosing instead to walk over to where Charlie stood under the tarp, holding one hand over her phone and tapping furiously with the other.

“Well?” He demanded.

“I’m trying to look up the car, but my connection’s shit” Charlie complained, “fuck Dean, was that really…” Dean interrupted her, not wanting the word to bring his upset stomach any more turmoil. 

“Yeah, it really was. Any luck?” 

“Not yet. Come on, you stupid piece of plastic.” The last part was directed at the phone, not at Dean. Finally the screen lit up with a result and Charlie gave a little whoop of joy.

“The van is registered to a Jessica Moore.” She beamed at Dean.

“Bet you ten dollars the sucker in it is her boyfriend.”

“You think she put him there?” 

“Let’s go ask her.”

Charlie put her now damp phone back in her pocket.

“Can we have lunch first?” Charlie asked. Dean made a face.

“You seriously want to eat after we saw that?” He asked incredulous.

“Not really, but I feel like I’m going to puke in your car and the best way to stop that from happening is to eat something.”

“Fine. But you’re paying.” Dean replied as he unlocked the car.

“As long as I get to pick the place.” Charlie tried as she climbed in, her wet jeans making a squeaky noise against the upholstery.

“You know the deal” Dean replied as he started the Impala, “driver chooses, shotgun shuts her cake hole.”

 

* * *

 

Castiel moved slowly as he came up the drive leading to the little two-story house he had called home for the past year, since he returned to Lawrence. It had been a good year, or at least he’d thought so. He’d patched up things with his family, started hanging out with Gabriel regularly again, found a job he really liked.

And now everything was unravelling. Because Gabriel had jumped off the roof of a building downtown. Castiel still couldn’t truly fathom that his brother was gone. Gabriel had been one of the brightest souls he’d ever known, always ready to help someone or offer a shoulder to cry on. He’d been  _ warm, _ in a way that made you want to curl up and tell him all your problems. And at the same time he had been one of the funniest people Castiel had ever had in his life. There was no one else yet who had managed to make him laugh hard enough to snort milk out his nose, but Gabriel could do it without breaking a sweat. And now he was dead.

It simply did not compute.

 

Cas opened the door and it was as if all air wheezed out of him like a popped balloon. He leaned against his front door, just standing there for several moments before he could move to remove his tan trenchcoat and expensive italian loafers. They were old and scuffed, but mom had taught him that a good pair of shoes could last ten years if treated right. And on a teacher’s salary, that was a necessity. 

 

He need to hear the message again, needed to hear his brother’s voice. With shaking hands, he pulled his phone from his pocket. There was a new text from Pamela saying how sorry she was for his loss and that she would cover his classes for as long as he needed it. He marked it as read and dialled voicemail.

_ “You have one saved message. Press 1 to listen to it”  _ came the unfeeling metallic voice and it was with a unsteady thumb he pressed the number.

There was a moment of static, then Gabriel’s voice filled his ear. It was fraught with pain, sounding so lost it broke his heart. Pleading in his ear.

_ “Cas? It’s me. I… I don’t know what to do. I can’t breathe. Help me… please help me. Just… just answer me, Cas, please…”  _ the message was interrupted by his brother sobbing desperately for a few moments, then once more that heart-wrenching silence. “Okay” Gabriel whispered in his ear,  _ “Okay. Cas. I get it. I’m sorry.” _

Castiel’s legs gave out on him and he sank slowly to the floor, still pressing the phone to his ear as if the gesture would keep Gabriel with him a little longer, keep him in this world for just a few more moments.

He hit redial. 

_ “You have one saved message…” _

 

* * *

 

Dean stared highly unimpressed at the pretty white house in the suburbs that was the address of Jessica Moore. It was one of those colonials with flowers everywhere, climbing the walls and growing aside the gravel path leading from the little gate with its clearly homemade sign up to the little porch, complete with swing. One of his foster families had lived in a house like that, but he couldn’t remember if it was the family that beat the shit out of him for sport or the one who made him do all the housework. It didn’t really matter, anyway. 

“This the place?” He asked Charlie, who was trying to make herself as small as possible in the rain. She looked a bit like a drowning puppy, all eyes pleading with him to get her inside.

“Yep, this is the place. Google Maps does not lie.” Dean wanted to make a snarky reply, but it was too damn wet to stay outside long enough and he was cold. Instead, he opened the little gate and strode up the gravel path to knock firmly on the door.

“Jessica Moore? This is Kansas PD. Open the door.” Dean yelled as he banged his fist against the elegant glass inlay. They probably didn’t even have an alarm, the dumbfucks. And now look at what had happened. Well, unless it was Jessica who had done it of course, but he had a hard time seeing a woman cover her boyfriend with maggots and let bees sting him to death. Maybe he’d cheated.

“No answer?” Charlie’s teeth had started to chatter.

“No.”  

“Well, maybe she’s hurt or dead and needs help.” Charlie suggested. Her hair was plastered to her head.

“Probable cause?” Dean smirked, then kicked in the door with one strong kick as he drew his gun. Charlie followed, without hers. She hated guns and only carried it because she was required to. She usually left the yelling and shooting to Dean. It was what made her such a good partner.

 

The house was dead silent, and the two officers moved quickly through the rooms. Finally, they met up on the upstairs landing. 

“Nothing” Dean said, shaking his head. “You?”

“No. Nothing. You think she’s running?”

“Probably. We’ll need to get an APB out. Any hints on the guy?”

“Oh shoot” Charlie groaned, looking miserable, “I forgot to check.” Dean rolled his eyes at her. Charlie could sometimes be green as hell, but also the smartest damn cop in the entire department. She had more brains than the rest of them together, but she was still a bit of a rookie. 

“Hey, it’s cool. Let’s go back down and look again, yeah?” 

 

On the first floor they eventually found a small office, full of law books. It took a few moments of digging through files in a tall wooden file cabinet, before Charlie triumphantly held up a piece of paper.

“Jessica Moore, certificate of nursing. The books aren’t hers.”

“Well, then they’re probably the boyfriend.” Dean nodded, “see if any of them have his name in it, I’m gonna check the photos in the hallway.”

Backtracking into the small hallway that was made bigger due to its tall ceiling, Dean examined the photos. Most of them were of a young blond woman and a smiling brunet man, about the same age. The victim, Dean figured. Something about the brown eyes were familiar, so damn familiar it made an unfamiliar ache wake up in his chest. The ache that was always there, had been there since the day he lost his family. He had been four years old.

These people were about the age Sam would be now, where ever he was, their whole lives ahead of them. Except the guy was dead and the girl missing.

Charlie came out, holding another piece of paper. “This is an acceptance letter to Yale made out to a Sam Wesson. Think that could be him?” Dean got a bit distracted at that. Sam. His brother’s name was Sam, too. 

“Maybe. Let’s bag it and take it to the station.” Dean took one of the pictures from the wall, then pulled out his phone. “I’ll call Bobby” he said as he held out the frame to Charlie. “Bag it, would you?”

 

* * *

 

Back at the station, Charlie and Dean both tried to look professional as their Captain, Bobby Singer, stared them down. Bobby was a man in his late fifties, heavy-set and rather grumpy. Dean blamed the wheelchair for the latter, but Charlie was always quick to point out that Bobby had been a grumpy bastard long before the gunshot that severed his spinal cord. The professional look was clearly not working for either of them as Bobby was looking more and more unimpressed the more time ticked by and none of them said anything.

“Well?” He eventually barked, making Dean flinch and Charlie jump.

“So uh… the victim-” Dean started just as Charlie said “the scene-”

“I know about the crime scene” Bobby griped, “Jo already spilled her guts on it. I want to know who the victim is and who the hell put him there!”

“We think the victim is a Sam Wesson” Charlie hurried to interject before Bobby really got going. She wasn’t in the mood to get an ass-chewing this rainy afternoon. 

“And we’ve got an APB out on his girlfriend, Jessica Moore” Dean added, feeling the same sense of hurry.

“Good. Go talk to her parents, or do I have to sit you both down and explain how to do your jobs?” Bobby barked at them. Charlie and Dean exchanged a brief look before they fled his office.

 

* * *

 

Mrs Moore, whose first name Dean had already forgotten, was a woman about Bobby’s age. However she most likely had never had a drinking problem as she had aged very well. She had the type of body you couldn’t place age-wise, and the only thing giving her away was her perfectly cut grey hair. Charlie had looked a little starstruck when Mrs Moore opened the door to the expansive villa in the fancy suburb and invited them in.

“Jessica is the sweetest girl in the world” Mrs Moore insisted, “she’d never hurt Sam. she adored him. They were so sweet together.” 

Charlie made a sympathetic noise as Dean eyed the fancy little cookies Mrs Moore had put on a chintzy plate on the coffee table. He wondered if he dared touch them but decided against; he already felt like a bull in a china shop with his damp suit and ill-fitting shoes. Next to him, Charlie was a beacon of style even though Dean could see that she was wearing mismatched socks and her boots were scuffed.

“Does Sam have any family we can talk to?” Charlie asked politely, giving Dean a warning look as he inched towards the cakes. He only had himself to blame, having asked her to help him keep under a certain weight so as to avoid the wrath of his personal trainer.

“No, poor dear. Lost his parents three years ago in a car crash. No siblings. He always says Jessica is his whole family.” Mrs Moore smiled fondly, then her smile slipped away into a frown.

“Poor Sam” she said, “he was going places, you know.” 

Dean nodded slowly. “Can you think of anyone who’d hurt either of them?”

Mrs Moore shook her head. 

“No, everyone loved my Jess. And Sam too, of course. They were the sweetest couple.”

Clearly, they weren’t getting anything else out of her at this point. Dean stood up, making Charlie do the same.

“Thank you Mrs Moore. We will do everything in our power to bring Jessica home to you safely.”

“Oh, you must detectives! My poor, sweet Jess… she does have her insulin, right?”

Dean blinked. “Insulin?”

Mrs Moore looked up at them, the finely crafted facade she had been using since their arrival finally starting to crack.

“My Jess has diabetes. She has to have the insulin, or she’ll die.”

 

* * *

 

Back in the car, Dean turned to Charlie before he started the engine.

“I don’t think she’s done it.” He said, “and if she had, she wouldn’t just vanish. Not if she needs medication.”

“I agree” Charlie said, shaking her head. “So do we treat this as a missing person, not a POI?”

 

“I think we have to.” Dean agreed, finally starting the car. “But there isn’t much more we can do today, really. Drop you off somewhere?”

Charlie snorted with laughter at his tone.

“Home, James!” She cried, making a grand gesture. 

Dean flipped her off and started driving.


	3. Chapter 3

Dean had just made it home, put on dry clothes and stuck a ready made dinner in the microwave when his phone rang. It took a bit of searching before he found it in the front pocket of his still-dripping coat.

“Dean” He replied distractedly as he padded back into the kitchen to check on dinner.

“Hey, Dean” a familiar voice rumbled over the line. “It’s Cas” the speaker added unnecessarily. As if Dean wouldn’t recognize that voice anywhere.

“Oh, uh… hey, Cas. How’d you get my number?” Well done Winchester, sounding like a complete idiot. 

“I called the station, said I had some very important information and they thought I was one of your informants.” Cas’ voice ran over him like smooth whiskey and suddenly he was eighteen again. Eighteen and riding in Cas’ car, scared shitless of how hard his heart was beating in his chest. Of what he felt for the older boy.

“Oh. uh…” he didn’t know what to say. His mouth wasn’t cooperating. Cas was silent too, his breath coming through the line making it feel like Dean just had to turn around and he’d be there. Except he wasn’t.

“Do you remember…” Cas said, suddenly, wrenching Dean back to reality.

“What?”

“No… nothing. Just… I wondered if we could meet up sometime? It’s been years.”

Fifteen years, six months, twenty-one days, but who was counting?

“Yeah… yeah, sure, sounds good. How’s tomorrow?”

“Great! Uh… at seven?”

“Okay, cool” Dean swallowed hard, fists clenching involuntarily. Dinner with Cas, holy shit, back in his teens he’d have  _ killed _ to go on a date with Cas. “I’ll uh… I’ll pick you up?”

“Sounds good. My address is-” Dean wrote down the address with a trembling hand, making the text nearly illegible. 

“Okay, yeah I’ll be there.” He said, when the silence stretched out and became uncomfortable.

Cas chuckled softly on the other end.

“It’s a date, then. See you tomorrow, Dean.” and then he was gone.

Dean stood frozen, unaware of the microwave dinging.  _ Holy shit _ , the eighteen year old Dean inside the adult Dean crowed,  _ we have a date with Cas. _

 

* * *

 

Castiel hung up the phone and felt a smile touch his lips for the first time since that awful day when he’d found out that Gabriel was gone. A real smile, that was, not the fake ones he’d put on to make his remaining family feel a bit better. He was going to see Dean again, the one man he’d never forgotten even though he’d had several partners in the years since he said goodbye to the then eighteen year old boy with the most beautiful green eyes he had seen in his life. The smile stayed with him all through making dinner and cleaning up, and didn’t dissipate until his phone rang and he saw on the display that it was Anna. 

He didn’t want to answer. Didn’t want to talk to her, didn’t want any part in her grief when he didn’t know how to handle his own. But he couldn’t ignore her, either. She was his sister, and she was as heartbroken as he was.

“Hey, Anna.” He said quietly. 

“Hey, Cas” her voice came over the line, thin and tinny and sounding as lost as he felt. 

“How are you?” he asked, knowing it was a stupid question.

“Take a wild guess” she snarked back, her laugh brittle. 

They fell into silence, Castiel staring out at the rain and wondering what heaven was like.

“Can I come over?” Anna asked, her voice unusually subdued for being her. “Stay a while? I can’t deal with being in this apartment alone.”

She had been sharing an apartment downtown with Gabriel for a few years. No wonder she couldn’t deal with being home alone, where his absence was everywhere.

“Sure” Castiel replied, feeling numbness spread in his body. So this was how it was going to be. “I’ll make up the spare bed.”

 

* * *

 

Anna packed slowly, reluctantly. It was as if she was abandoning Gabriel again, leaving him alone in the silence and absence of his laughter. This was wrong, but she couldn’t deal with the silence one more night. When Gabriel had been… when he had  _ been _ , the apartment had never been silent. She’d gotten used to sleeping with ear plugs right fast after he moved in after her divorce, her schedule at the hospital irregular and his music always playing. Her hands skimmed over the thick book lying on her bedside table, hesitating. She didn’t want Castiel to read it. Not yet, at least. Perhaps later. But at the same time she couldn’t bear leaving it behind, not when its content was always on her mind. Finally, she stuffed it into her bag and turned to leave the silence behind. 

“Bye Gabe” she called to the empty apartment, like she always had when she left before. “Don’t wait up!”

_ “As if I would,”  _ she didn’t hear him call back.

 

* * *

 

The rain was once more pattering against the windows that morning as Dean came in to work, shivering and cursing at the cold. He felt a bit better when Charlie offered him a big mug of black coffee, flashing his partner a quick, grateful smile. 

“We have a prelim on the victim” Charlie said once he was a few sips in. Dean made a face at her.

“Do we know his name?”

“It’s Sam Wesson, like we thought. It’s horrible, Dean, I’ve already read it.”

“Damn. Did you sleep at all last night?”

Charlie looked guilty the way only she could after too much coffee and too little sleep. She couldn’t quite meet his eyes.

“They’re trying a new drug” she said quietly, a haunted look on her face. Dean made a face. Charlie’s mum, hell, was it ever gonna end.

“Anything?” He asked in the same tone. She looked cautiously hopeful.

“They say she’s responding well.”

“That’s what they said last time, and the time before that” Dean didn’t say. Charlie had enough shit on her plate without his cynicism. 

 

“Tell me about it” Dean ordered as he walked further into the office area fondly known as ‘the murder pen’, where he and Charlie had flanking desks. Hers was overcrowded, spilling with papers and random trinkets that made perfect sense to her and no sense to anyone else. Next to hers, his desk was as neat as something out of an army brochure.

He pushed away a few papers and a small doll of a girl with brown hair and sat down on the edge of her desk, preferring it to sitting in his own creaky, uncomfortable chair. Charlie curled up on her own equally uncomfortable chair, picking up a file.

“Cause of death is anaphylactic shock from being stung in the mouth, throat, and nose.” She began, and Dean interrupted with a horrified,

“Jesus. He was breathing them in.”

“Yeah.” Charlie’s voice was shaky. 

“Anything else?” 

“No other injuries, apart from the stings. Oh, and abrasions on his wrists. Most likely unconscious when he was put in the van. Uhm… oh yeah, the blood isn’t his.”

“Blood?” Charlie made a face, dropped the file back onto her desk. 

“ _ Save Me _ . It was written in blood. Not the victim’s.” Dean finished his coffee.

“Jessica’s?”   
“Wrong blood type. She’s B+, this is O.”

Dean put his mug down on Charlie’s desk, ignoring her dirty look.

“Doesn’t say much to me, you know, but okay. What do we know about her? Jessica?”

“She works at Lawrence General. I called them, one of her supervisors agreed to talk to us. I was just waiting for you.”

“Right, better get going then.” Dean made a face, not really wanting to get back into the rain. But his shoes weren’t going to stop sluicing uncomfortably any time soon, so he might as well. He stood up, grimaced at the chafing of his jeans, and led Charlie out of the murder pen. She trailed along like an obedient puppy, seemingly content to let him take the lead. If nothing else, it was easier that way.

 

* * *

 

Lawrence General was a small hospital, but that didn’t stop Dean from getting lost if he hadn’t been able to follow Charlie’s lead. She knew the hospital inside out, since her mother had been a patient in the long-term ward for almost as long as Dean and Charlie had known each other. Or perhaps longer. She had never said and he had never asked. He wasn’t good at the whole intimate conversations thing and she wasn’t really the sharing type.

It only took a few minutes to locate the correct ward, and short for Dean to realize just why his partner was so terse.

“Your mom’s here, isn’t she” he asked without really asking. Charlie gave a sharp nod. 

“Room six.”

“Wanna go see her?” Dean asked uncomfortably. Charlie shook her head no.

“Maybe later.” She replied.

“Who are we here to talk to, anyway?” Charlie looked at her notepad.

“Anna Milton.” 

“Hello Dean” a woman’s voice said just behind him and both Charlie and Dean jumped.

The woman in question turned out to be a tall redhead with pale skin and hard eyes, dressed in a nurse’s uniform. Dean recognized her immediately and cursed his rotten luck. Cas’ sister. Just fucking perfect.

“Hey Anna” Dean flashed his most charming smile, but it didn’t have the usual effect.

“Miss Milton-” Charlie started.

“That’s Mrs.” Anna interrupted, her voice as hard as her eyes. “You wanted to talk about Jessica. We can talk in here.”

She led them into a small examination room and closed the door.

“Jessica was a nice person” Anna said before either Dean or Charlie had time to say anything at all, “the kind that everyone loves. Just… just down to the bones  _ nice. _ Never missed a shift, never raised her voice. Everyone here liked her. I can’t imagine what’s happened to her. Is there anything else?”

Dean blinked. That had sounded rehearsed. But he didn't really have anything to go in apart from a gut feeling, and he hadn’t seen Anna for years. He didn’t know what she was like anymore, he just remembered a gawky teenager making eyes at him. Eyes he had ignored in order to make his own eyes at Cas, who had been every filthy fantasy he’d ever had come alive.

But that was a long time ago.

“Is there anyone else we can talk to, who knew her better?” Dean said when he realised he was expected to say something. Anna startled, clearly not expecting the question.

“Ask Mary. Mary Wilberforce. I think they knew each other from nursing school.” With that, the conversation was clearly over and Anna stalked out of the little examination room, leaving Dean and Charlie to stare at each other dumbly.

“There’s something there” Dean finally said. Charlie nodded slowly.

“Could be simple jealousy. If everyone loved Jessica.” she offered. Then her eyes slid towards the door, and Dean had a pretty good idea what she was thinking. They were in her mother’s ward.

“Go see her” he encouraged with a quick smile. “I’ll go see if I can track down this Mary.”

Charlie licked her lips, made as if to say something. Then she flashed a wan, hopeful grin and disappeared out the door and down the hall towards her mother’s room.

 

Dean exited the room too, and headed in the other direction towards the nurse’s station. He aimed for a pretty brunette sorting some files, figuring he could get something out of her if he flashed a smile or two. He always had it easy with women, and with men too. The patent Winchester charm, someone had told him once. He wasn’t sure who, and it didn’t matter. They’d been right.

Dean leaned on the desk, flashing a grin and his badge at the same time.

“Hey, beautiful, maybe you could help me?” He began, and was about to ask the nurse, who was blushing and grinning at him, about Jessica and where to find this Mary Wilberforce person.

But he hadn’t gotten that far when he was interrupted by a sound he had heard exactly once before and never wanted to hear again if he lived to be eighty. 

Charlie screaming.

 

For a moment he stood frozen, head half-turned, staring uncomprehending down the corridor where he could see his screaming partner back out of a hospital room, and straight into the opposite wall. Still wailing like a banshee in a bad horror movie, she sank to the floor, staring with enormous eyes on something Dean couldn’t see.

The outright agony in Charlie’s voice finally brought Dean to his senses and he sprinted towards her, already withdrawing his gun ready to aim at whatever it was that had upset her.

 

He only needed one look at Charlie’s face to realise that she wasn’t going to tell him anything, and instead he burst into the room she had just exited, gun drawn. He was met with a while drape pulled mostly around a bed where a middle-aged woman lay as if sleeping. There was absolutely nothing to hint at there being anything wrong in the room, and Dean lowered his gun, perplexed. Charlie’s screams had tapered of to sobs at this point, and a quick glance out the door showed him that the pretty brunette nurse was in her knees next to Charlie, rocking her like a child. 

 

Dean took another look around the room. It was a normal hospital room, nothing special whatsoever. Drab tan walls, linoleum floors, a solitary bed with a woman who lay sleeping. Except Dean knew that Mrs Bradbury wasn’t sleeping. She was in a coma. Charlie still visited once a week to read to her. Mostly fantasy books.

 

Dean moved closer, noticing that the woman’s chest wasn’t moving. Dead. Shit, no wonder Charlie was beside herself, she’d just found her mother dead. Her only family, at least Dean was reasonably sure. She’d never mentioned anyone else, anyway. He moved closer, figuring he might as well have a look. Maybe finding her mother dead hadn’t been enough to upset Charlie to the state where she howled like a banshee and seemed beyond anyone reaching her in her shock.

 

Dean moved closer to the bed slowly, making sure to check that no one was hiding under it or behind the drapes. The room was empty, apart from the dead woman. It wasn’t until he turned to leave that he got an inkling about what might have upset Charlie.

 

Because when he turned to leave, he saw the inside of the drapes.

 

“SAVE ME” was written on them in a dark red liquid that could only be blood.


	4. Chapter 4

“What the fuck is going on, Dean?” Was Jo’s eloquent comment when she came on the scene, taking in the dead woman in the bed. “This is most likely natural causes, I’m a spec-”

“I know, but look at the inside of the drapes and you know why I demanded they send you.”

Jo obeyed him for once. “Well, shit” was her even more eloquent comment once she’d seen what was written on him. “That looks like blood. Alright, get the fuck off my crime scene and let me do my job.”

 

Dean went back to the nurse’s station, where the same pretty brunette nurse from earlier was giving Charlie a mug of tea and wrapping her in a bright yellow blanket.

“She’s had a nasty shock” she said to Dean as if he couldn’t figure that out himself. But he chose not to bicker with the woman, instead nodded in gratitude and turned to Charlie.

“You there, partner?” 

Charlie looked up at him, her eyes those of a lost little girl told there’s no such thing as santa.

“My mom is dead” she said numbly, making Dean want to wrap her up in bubble wrap and never let anyone hurt her ever again. But instead, he crouched down in front of her as if she was that little girl, used that special voice.

“I know, Charlie. And I need you to help me find out who. Can you do that?”

Something flashed in Charlie’s eyes. Angry. Defiant.

“I’m not some kid witness, Winchester” she snarled.

He smiled at her, relieved.

“I know. But you had me worried there for a bit.”

“Oh, fuck off.” And she was back, his Charlie. It felt good to see the passion in her eyes again, even if the despair lurked there too.

“We’re gonna get the bastard” he promised her, and somewhere inside he was promising the kid in the van too. No one should go out like that.

 

* * *

 

“You don’t have to stay, you know” Charlie told him that night as she poked uninterestedly at the take-out he’d bought as he drove her home.

“Don’t be stupid” Dean grumbled as he ate more sesame chicken, “as if I’d leave you now. Charlie, you just lost your mom.”

“I know.” she said, slowly starting to eat her noodles, “but I’m not getting her back. And besides, you got that hot date.” 

“It’s not a hot date” Dean flushed, “Cas and I- we’re just meeting up for drinks.”

“Lucky you can eat dinner twice in one evening” she replied, once more poking listlessly at her food. “But seriously. You should go. Don’t keep the hottie waiting.”

“Charlie-” 

“I’m just gonna take the pills they gave me at the hospital and go to bed. You should meet with- what was his name again? Cas? Weird name.”

“It’s short for Castiel.”

“That’s even weirder.” She rolled her eyes, but her food was disappearing at a rate that almost had Dean reassured. 

He didn’t want to leave her, but… well. This was Cas. There had been a time when nothing mattered more than Cas in the world, and there was still a rather large part of him that thought so.  

“I’m not leaving until you fall asleep. And if you wake up and need anything, I mean  _ anything _ , you call me. Okay?”   
Charlie smiled at him, it didn’t reach her eyes but he gave her points for trying.

“Got it” she said, looking back down at her food.

“Are you sure there isn’t anyone I can call? Glinda?”

Glinda was her ex-girlfriend. Dean didn’t know why they’d ended it, and Charlie was keeping mum so he was probably never going to find out. She shook her head, then she seemed to think about it.

“I’ll call Jo” she said, making Dean blink at her in surprise. But he watched carefully as she dialled, listened as she exchanged a few short phrases, and tried not to frown too badly. The idea of leaving Charlie alone, even if only for a bit while waiting for Jo to show up, sat ill with him. 

“Make her text me when she gets here” he demanded even as Charlie chased him out the door, insisting that she was going to be okay while she waited for Jo to show up and he damn well better go get thoroughly laid or he was dealing with her in the morning.

“And stop telling me to go on bereavement leave!” Was Charlie’s parting words as she booted him out in the rain. 

Dean flipped the bird at the closed door and headed for his car.

 

* * *

 

Charlie let the smile on her face disappear when the door closed, letting herself sink down onto the couch. She didn’t want anything more to eat; it felt like she was going to throw up if she did. This day had been a nightmare; first the early morning conversation with Bobby about what she had found at Sam and Jessica’s house, then… she didn’t want to think about it. She did  _ not _ want to think about it. But her thoughts returned there anyway.

“Mom” she cried, her voice thin and reedy, full of desperation. She’d lived her whole life in the hope that one day she’d have her mother back, and now that hope was shattered. She curled up into as small a ball as possible and sobbed her heart out, wishing more than anything that she wasn’t alone.

 

When Charlie’s tears finally ran out, she was lying against a warm body and a pair of gentle arms were around her.

“Dean?” she asked, not understanding who else could possibly be there with her.

“Sorry to disappoint” Jo said, rocking her slowly like one would a frightened child. Charlie adjusted her head where it was cradled in the nook of Jo’s neck, breathing in the scent of soap and clean skin. Jo’s hair was damp against her cheek,, but whether from her post-shift shower or the rain Charlie couldn’t tell.

“Thanks for coming” she said, her voice rough with crying.

“Of course” Jo replied gently, “I came as soon as I could.”

“My mom is gone” Charlie whispered, staring with unseeing eyes at her living room wall, full of posters and framed fanart. 

“I know.” Jo squeezed her tighter, as reluctant to let go as Charlie was.

 

They sat in silence for an unknown amount of time, Charlie cradled close to Jo’s chest like she belonged there. It was a nice feeling, being held like this. It had been quite some time since she and Glinda broke up, and there hadn’t really been anyone to hug Charlie since. But now there was Jo, who seemed completely comfortable doing so. It made Charlie feel comfortable too, and she never wanted to let go. 

But eventually, her bladder demanded she do so and she excused herself to the bathroom. Having done her business, she got a good look at herself in the mirror. What she saw was a woman in her early thirties, with long red hair and blue eyes, face blotchy and red with tears. She looked horrible, Charlie thought critically and splashed some cold water onto her face. What was Jo going to think of her?

 

When she returned to the living room, Jo was helping herself to the leftover takeaway as if she had every right to do so. It made Charlie smile, even though it was just a small grimace.

“I skipped dinner” Jo said around her chopsticks, completely unrepentant.

“Go ahead” Charlie shrugged, “I’m not going to finish it anyway.”

Jo did as she was told, and something unfurled in Charlie’s chest.  _ Mom would like you _ , she thought, and surprisingly the thought didn’t hurt.

 

* * *

 

The freezing Lawrence rain had started to let up by the time Dean got to Cas’ place, but it was still chilly. Dean’s socks sluiced uncomfortably in his shoes as he went up to the house, which turned out to be a sweet little thing with white walls and tall windows, mostly dark even though it wasn’t really that late in the evening. 

 

Dean hadn’t been sure what he had planned. But when Castiel opened the door his brain stopped working and all blood in his body rushed south to pool in his groin, pulsing and throbbing with want. Castiel was gorgeous; pouting red lips, deep blue eyes, neatly combed dark hair. It made Dean forget the guilt he felt for having left Charlie alone, even though he knew that by now Jo would be there to keep the other woman company. Castiel’s blue eyes slid over his body in obvious appreciation, and all thoughts left Dean’s head to give way for lust.

“Dean” Castiel said as a way of greeting, his voice deep and gravelly. It made shivers run up and down Dean’s spine, hunger growing. He wanted, with dawning horror, to get naked right then and there and have Cas fuck him six ways from Sunday, until he was hoarse with screaming and his toes curled. His fingers were itching to undo Castiel’s neat blue tie, rip the white shirt from his body and lick his way down to the expensive looking leather belt and black slacks. Wanted to run his fingers through dark mussed hair and climb the man like a tree. 

 

Dean would never be able to tell how they ended up in the kitchen or what sort of meal Castiel had cooked them both, only that he ate mechanically staring as transfixed at Castiel’s impossibly beautiful mouth.

“Dean” Castiel said eventually, sounding disappointed. Dean startled, yanked from his fantasies about getting down on his knees and crawling over to him, burying his face in his groin and breathing him in.

“Hm?”

“You haven’t heard a word I’ve said, have you?” Castiel looked at him with sad blue eyes and Dean felt like a complete heel. He put down his fork, noticing for the first time that his plate was clean. Apparently, the food had been good.

“I’m sorry” he said honestly, “It’s been a rough day.”

Castiel’s disappointed gaze turned worried. 

“Tell me about it?” He asked, no pressure in his tone. Dean considered it. Thought of Charlie. How horrible he felt leaving her alone, even though Jo had texted him about ten minutes after he left to let him know she was at Charlie’s door. Thought about the case. Wondered, again, who it really was who needed saving.

Eventually, he shook his head.

“It’s work” he said apologetically, and Castiel nodded in understanding.

“You’ve been a detective for a long time?” He asked, and Dean nodded, thighs parting subconsciously in response to the deep timber of the voice that made little shivers jolt down his spine.

“Joined the academy straight out of high school” He said, then added, “thanks for dinner, it was delicious.” Well, he assumed it had been delicious. 

Castiel smiled, and Dean’s heart jumped into his throat. God, he was beautiful.

“Dessert?” He offered, standing up to take their plates.

“What is it?” Dean asked, not wanting to be too impolite.

“Well, if I remember correctly, apple pie is the way to go” Castiel teased, still grinning. Dean flushed.

“Well, if you got pie, I’m all yours.”

“That so” Castiel said, a throaty note in his voice that made Dean’s cock pulse with desire. He was already hard, had been for some time, but now he had to bite his tongue to keep back a hungry whimper. God, he wanted him so bad.

 

“Well” Castiel went on, putting the dishes in the sink and running the water, “maybe dessert can wait.”

He turned around to look at Dean again, eyes rimmed with darkness. He looked as if he was undressing Dean with his eyes.

“Yeah” Dean agreed, breathless. “Dessert can wait.”

“Never heard you turn down pie before” Cas growled, moving towards Dean like a predator towards their prey of choice. Dean shivered, subconsciously spreading his legs further. It turned out to be the right thing to do, as Castiel fit between his legs as if made to be there, his body burning hot against Dean’s.

They kissed hungrily, all biting and snarling with want as they came together as ravenous beasts, hands roaming and finding heated skin. Dean ripped Castiel’s shirt open, stroking his heaving stomach and finding already stiff nipples, tweaking them like he remembered driving Castiel wild.

He was rewarded by a hungry groan and a hand pawing at his fly, desperate to get him undressed. Dean ripped of his own shirt, letting Castiel’s lips roam his neck, finding and rediscovering every hotspot and a few new ones. It wasn’t the first time they came together like this, but there was a desperation and a need there that hadn’t been there before. Like they were starving for it, ravenous with lust.

 

Castiel’s hands were surprisingly rough, burning trails down Dean’s body as he stripped him, lifting him onto the high bar table like he weighed nothing, ripping of his pants and socks as he did so. Bare from the waist down, Dean shivered in the cool air of the kitchen as Cas nearly ripped his legs open, pressing against him, hardness against hardness. Dean moaned in appreciation. He needed this so bad, hadn’t known how much until Cas kissed him. Needed him to fuck him, fuck the guilt and shame for being there out of him, fuck him until he didn’t care about anything else.

“Fuck me” he groaned, dick drooling with desire as Castiel fumbled for something to use to ease the way, “God, Cas, fuck me.”


	5. Chapter 5

Dean could hear the muffled yelling from the moment he limped into the bullpen, but he didn't hear actual words or whose voice it was until he was directly outside Bobby's office. 

“-bereavement leave!” he heard Charlie's voice, more than a little indignant. He couldn’t hear what Bobby replied, but he didn’t really need to. Dean Winchester was many things, but stupid wasn’t one of them. Bobby clearly wanted Charlie off this case, but as to why he didn’t know.

“I am not compromised!” Charlie shrieked, sounding like a banshee about to tell you that your family had died. “And even if I was, then Dean is, too!”

Wait,  _ what? _ He wasn’t compromised. In order to be compromised you had to know a victim somehow, and the only victim he knew was Charlie’s mom, and that only by word of mouth. He moved closer to the door, trying to hear what was being said beyond Charlie’s yelling.

“Of course I haven’t told him!” He heard her say, interrupting Bobby’s deep rumbling. “Do you honestly think that Dean’s going to be happy hearing that oh hey, I found your brother after thirty years - sorry, he’s just been murdered!”

Dean’s world spun to a stop. Sam. Sammy. Baby Sammy. The brother he’d not seen since he was four years old and his parents died in a house fire. The brother who’d been adopted by a family that didn’t want a traumatised child on their hands, only a baby. Sam, whom he’d never given up hope to one day find again, somewhere. Sam was dead. Dean’s furiously working mind went in a direction he didn’t want to go in, to a van and a dead youth and three hives’ worth of angry bees. To a death horrifying and degrading, vicious in its cruelty and insensible in its horror. Sammy. His Sammy was the man in the van. 

Dean leaned forward and threw up the breakfast Cas had made for him. 

 

This was of course when Charlie came out of Bobby’s office, looking like a thundercloud. 

“Oh, ew!” Was her very eloquent comment as she watched Dean, hunched over and heaving his guts up.

“You okay?” She asked once she felt confident he’d finished, carefully stepping over the mess on the floor so as not to ruin her shoes.

Dean wiped his mouth, making a face.

“Just had some news” He croaked, feeling nauseous at the vile taste in his mouth. Charlie paled, her blue eyes flickering anxiously as she realized that he’d overheard her argument with Bobby. She pushed a few strands of red hair behind her ear in a nervous gesture.

“Dean, I-” she began, but he held up a hand to stop her.

“Don’t” he ordered, “I don’t want to talk about it.”

Charlie’s guilty face intensified.

“I’m really sorry-” she began, but he glared back.

“I said I don’t want to talk about it.”

Charlie visibly wilted, but she didn’t say anything else on the subject. Instead, she tried for another angle.

“How did the date go?” She asked, smirking at him.

Dean rolled his eyes. Trust Charlie to go for the throat.

“Fine” he said, staggering over to the vending machine to purchase a bottle of water.

“Is that why you can’t walk straight?” Charlie had a shit-eating grin on her face as she trailed just behind him, clearly not willing to let the matter go. Dean flipped her off with one hand and punched in the numbers with the other, refusing to answer her question. Instead, he said;

“You okay?”

Charlie’s smile became brittle. 

“Jo slept on the couch” she said, buying time. Then she shook her head. “What am I supposed to say, Dean? How are you supposed to feel after your mum is murdered?”

Dean twisted of the cap on the bottle and drank deeply, letting the cool water wash away the foul taste in his mouth.

“I don’t now,” he admitted, “probably the same thing you’re supposed to say when you find out that you’re investigating your brother’s murder.”

Charlie flinched.

“Dean, I’m so sorry, I-”

“Were you ever going to tell me?” He asked, interrupting an apology he didn’t want.

Charlie looked away. She didn’t need to say anything else. She did anyway.

“I’m sorry.”

“Yeah.” Dean said, leaning back against the dirty grey wall, “me too.”

 

* * *

 

A few fruitless hours came and went, Dean and Charlie spending most of it making lists of people they needed to talk to that could possibly know anything about Sam and Jessica and sorting through tips of the latter’s possible location.

“Anything?” Charlie groaned from behind a pile of papers that almost shrouded her completely from Dean’s gaze. She’d just come of the phone with Mary Wilberforce who, through her sobbing, hadn’t given Charlie anything she didn’t already know. Everyone loved Sam and Jess, there hadn’t been any problems, they had to find Jessica.

“No” he replied grumpily and discreetly checked his cellphone for the tenth time. Nothing new. He felt irrationally disappointed that Cas hadn’t texted or called yet. As if they hadn’t spend most of the night fucking like rabbits all over Cas’ fancy house with the expensive furniture and lush carpeting. As if Dean didn’t have rug burns on the back of his thighs, nipples chafing against his shirt, body sore in places that hadn’t been sore in way too long. 

Just then, Dean’s computer made a pinging noise that he associated with his email. Charlie had done something with his computer to make it ping every time he had an email, just because he sucked at reading them on time. It was annoying as hell, but it had the added benefit of his partner glaring at him until he actually did what he was supposed to and checked it.

He clicked the notification window and got routed to his inbox. 

It was an email from one of those addresses that’s only numbers, the kind that Charlie said were almost impossible to trace. He should know better than to open it at this point, Charlie had given him untold lectures on internet safety and what you shouldn’t do online, but he couldn’t ignore the title. It said SAVE ME.

Dean opened the mail, and a video started to play. It was grainy, in black and white, and the audio was muffled, but the contents were enough for him to yell at Charlie to get her ass over to his desk immediately. 

Hanging over Dean’s shoulder, Charlie watched two terrified men tied up and gagged, staring into the camera with wide, pleading eyes, turned bovine with terror.

“Isn’t that-” Charlie began, pointing a shaking finger at the screen.

“Michael Carrington” Dean murmured back. The millionaire had moved back to Lawrence the year before and was in all the papers, living up scandal after scandal. It was impossible not to know his name. The other man was unknown to both Charlie and Dean, but he looked young. Young and petrified.

“Holy shit” Charlie breathed, as she saw what was written on the wall over the men’s heads.  _ SAVE ME.  _

The video cut to static, and Dean moved to turn it off. 

“Wait” Charlie said, “look, it’s not finished.”

Holding their breaths, they both waited for what was to come next. They didn’t have to wait more than a few seconds, but it felt like an eternity.

Then the video started back up, and this time another familiar face filled it. Jessica Moore stared straight into the camera with the same bovine eyes as the two men previously, tears streaming down her cheeks as she screamed through the gag covering her mouth. Her arms were outstretched to her sides, hinting at them being tied. Over her muffled sobs there was an odd noise, almost metallic, but impossible to identify to a mere human ear. The clip lasted only a few seconds before the video ended, leaving the two detectives to stare dumbfounded at the screen.

“What the hell is going on?” Charlie whispered. Dean said nothing. 

 

* * *

 

Two hours later, Dean parked his car at an angle outside the fancy mansion that was home to Michael Carrington, turning to look at Charlie. Her face was pale, and she had large rings under her eyes.

“You sure you want to do this?” He asked, and she nodded slowly. 

“He deserves justice” she whispered to herself, “and we need to find him.”

Dean nodded, turned off the ignition, and got out of the Impala. It wasn’t until then that he got a good look at the house, and gave a low impressed whistle. The house was one of those old fashioned southern mansions, with more windows than he could count and ivy crawling over the walls. It made Dean think of an old black and white movie and he almost expected slaves to be working their miserable asses of in a cotton field out the back.  

“Looks like a plantation house” Charlie voiced his thoughts as she came up beside him.

“Charming, isn’t it” Dean quipped back. “Let’s go.”

He strolled up to the entrance as if he owned the place, ringing the doorbell. It didn’t take long before the door was opened by a man who seemed to be in his early sixties, grey and worn but with an elegant suit.

“Yes?” He said blandly, but his eyes were sharp.

“I’m detective Bradbury, this is my partner. We called earlier?” Charlie flashed her best winning smile that did nothing to hide how tired she was. The man, whom Dean figured to be the butler (he had the look) nodded and stepped aside.

“We have already spoken to the police” said the butler, his voice thick with disapproval.

“We know” said Charlie and flashed her smile again, “but we need to ask a few questions about Mr Carrington. Is there anywhere we can sit down?”

“The parlor will be acceptable” the butler said, still displeased, and showed them the way through an expensive foyer that was made of too much white marble and expensive art to suit Dean’s tastes. 

The room they were showed into wasn’t much better, and Dean eyed the white couch with apprehension. Charlie, however, had no qualms but sat down and straightened her plaid skirt, pulling it down over her knees.

“Please, Mr Black” she said to the butler, “we won’t take much of your time, we just need some questions answered.”

The butler, Mr Black, nodded at her but remained standing. Charlie gave Dean a warning glance and he slowly lowered himself onto the couch, figuring that the people here could afford dry cleaning it.

“Mr Black” Charlie began, “when did you last see Mr Carrington?”

“Three days ago, he was going out.”

“Did he say where”

“No, but he took the Volkswagen.”

“The Volkswagen?”

“It’s the car he uses when he wants to be unnoticed. It isn’t registered to him.”

“So he didn’t want anyone to know where he was going?”

“No, and I did not ask. It is not my place.”

Charlie nodded, thoughtful. Dean wondered if Michael Carrington had dirty secrets. 

“We need to show you a picture” Charlie said, pulling a photo from her pocket. “It can be disturbing, but we need to know if you recognise the man in the photo.”

She held out the screenshot of the other man in the video to Mr Black, waiting with bated breath. The butler looked briefly at the photo.

“Of course I recognise him. It is Adam, the housekeeper’s boy.”

Charlie and Dean looked at each other, almost dizzy from hope. An ID, that quickly? Maybe things were turning around.

“We need to speak to your housekeeper” said Dean, trying his best to keep his voice neutral.

 

* * *

 

The woman that was apparently the housekeeper was pale as a sheet as Mr Black showed her in. 

“Mrs Milligan” he said formally, before exiting the room as if it was no longer in his interest what was said.

“Please Mrs Milligan” said Charlie, “sit down and talk to us.”

Mrs Milligan sank down on the couch opposite the one Dean and Charlie sat on and pulled at her hair, done up in a tight bun. Dean wondered if it was hard labour or worry that had made her age, because she looked at least as old as the butler if you looked at her face. Her hands were gnarled and worn, with liver spots starting to appear. 

“Is Adam your son or grandson?” Charlie asked, clearly as confused to the woman’s age as Dean.

“Son” said the woman, grimacing. “I had him late in life, I didn’t think I’d ever be a mother but… there he was.”

Charlie nodded in false understanding.

“How long ago did you last see Adam?” she asked, gently. Mrs Milligan sniffled.

“Three nights ago. He said he had a date. Wouldn’t tell me who it was, as if I would be ashamed of him. I don’t understand why he wouldn’t tell me, he tells me everything.”

Dean fought the urge to roll his eyes. In his experience, boys who told their mothers everything usually kept a lot of secrets.

“Do you have any idea who he might have been meeting?” He asked, trying not to sound sardonic. Mrs Milligan shook her head, a few strands of mousy hair coming loose. Her limpid blue eyes looked beseechingly at the detectives.

“I don’t know” she said, “I really don’t.”

Charlie hesitated, then she pulled out another picture from her pocket. This one was of Adam and Michael together, another snapshot from the video. She slowly pushed it across the glass coffee table towards Mrs Milligan.

“Could it be possible that he was meeting with Mr Carrington?” She asked carefully. Mrs Milligan frowned and shook her head firmly.

“Never” she said, “Adam was a good boy. He would never do something like that. He’s a good boy.”

Dean wondered if Adam was the sort of good boy the preachers of his childhood would have condemned to hell, but wisely kept his mouth shut.

 

* * *

As Charlie and Dean left the mansion, Dean’s phone rang. His heart jumped into his throat hoping it was Cas, but was immediately dashed when he saw Jo’s number on the display.

“Hey, Jo” he said, trying not to sound as disappointed as he was, “what’s up?”

“Bay bridge” Jo replied, “Now. It’s a doozy.” Then there was a click as she hung up, and Dean turned to Charlie.

“Get in the car” he said, “Jo says it’s happened again.”

“If there are maggots, I’m leaving” Charlie said sardonically as she climbed into the car.


	6. Chapter 6

There weren't any maggots, but that was probably the only good thing about the scene. Dean could feel his stomach churn for the second time that day when he saw the corpses, hanging suspended just outside the tunnel entrance, a rope tied to their feet. They were hanging upside down, nude, wrapped around each other in a parody of a lover’s embrace. In the dim light of the early evening Dean had to walk rather close to be able to see exactly how they were tied together, but when he got close enough he had to turn away and gag. The two dead men, whom he now could see were the missing Michael Carrington and Adam Milligan, were connected with meat hooks running through their flesh. There was an acrid smell of blood that almost overpowered the stench of rotting bodies and Dean really just wanted to run like hell in the other direction. He was not paid enough to deal with this sort of shit.

“What the hell” Charlie breathed from somewhere behind him.

“Yeah” Dean agreed, not knowing what else to say. “Sick fuck.” 

And sick fuck was really a good description of their murderer. Because it was the same person, it had to be. The van abandoned on the bridge, doors open, had the words SAVE ME written on the inside.

“I wonder who needs saving” Charlie said quietly. “The victims or the killer?”

 

* * *

 

Ellen Harvelle, the medical examiner, was a brunette woman in her late forties with sharp brown eyes and sharper features. She was one of Dean’s favourite people, known for her no-nonsense nature and sharp tongue.

“You need to find this guy, Dean” she said as a way of greeting as he entered her office. “Whoever it is is a sick bastard.”

“Yeah, we know.” He replied, grimacing. “What have you got?”   
“Not much, I haven’t opened them yet.” She said, “but I know you need a preliminary as soon as possible so…”

“Thank you, Ellen” Dean replied, giving Ellen his best puppy dog look.

“Right, so.” Ellen looked down at a piece of paper in front of her.

“Victims have been identified as Michael Carrington and Adam Milligan. Dead from blood loss.”

“Blood loss?”   
“From the meat hooks. They were still alive when they were hooked together.”

Dean flinched. That was one of the most awful things he’d heard in his life, including seeing what had happened to Sam in that van just a few days ago. It felt like a lifetime, really. Ellen ignored his flinch, going on.

“Hooks common meat hooks, the kind used in meat factories. Hooked together while still alive, then pushed over the bridge. Gravitation did the rest. They bled out.”

“Anything else?” Ellen gave him a disappointed look.

“Not until I open them up. You’re going to have to wait.”

 

* * *

 

As he left Ellen’s office, Dean’s mobile rang. He didn’t look at the display, simply held it to his ear and slid to answer.

“Hey, Dean” a gravelly voice said on the other and and Dean came to a halt.

“Cas” he said, the word like syrup on his mouth, heavy and sweet.

“I’m sorry i haven’t called” Castiel said, sounding honestly sorry, “It’s just… we’ve been clearing Gabriel’s apartment.”

“I understand” Dean said, thinking of the man who had ended his life a mere month previous. He still couldn’t quite believe that Gabriel had chosen suicide, the other man had always seemed larger than life.

There was silence, as if Cas was waiting for him to say something, but Dean didn’t know what to say. So he waited, too.

The silence had just started to become uncomfortable when Cas went on, 

“About last night…” he stopped again, sounding unsure. “It was…”

“Yeah?” Dean felt his heart jump into his throat, readying him for disappointment.

“I’m not sure it was a good idea” Castiel finally said, sounding thoughtful.

“IT was just sex” Dean defended himself, feeling like a slut. He’d been all over Cas, after all, practically gagging for it.

“Was it?” There was silence again. He could hear soft breaths through the line.

“Yeah” Dean said, not meaning what he said. “Just sex. For old times sake.”

“Oh.” Was it as he imagined, or did Castiel sound disappointed?

“I guess I should go” yeah, definitely disappointed. Dean felt like a complete asshole.

“Wait!” He cried, not sure what to say. But at least Cas didn’t hang up on him yet. Instead the other man seemed to wait, just breathing.

“I… I want to see you again” Dean admitted, trying not to sound too needy.

“I… that’d be nice” said Cas, “maybe we can talk this time.”

Dean nodded, then realised that Cas couldn’t see him. “Yeah. talk.”

“You free tonight?” Was that a hopeful note? Dean bit his lip. It was Friday night, and he was due at Charlie’s at eight for their weekly roleplaying. 

“How’s tomorrow?” He said eventually.

“Sure. Eight? My place.”

Dean found himself smiling, even though he was tired and beat down and still vaguely in shock from what he’d heard from Ellen.

“I’ll be there” he promised.

 

* * *

 

Charlie looked up from a file she was trying to read but wasn’t paying attention to to look curiously at the young boy standing in front of her.

“Detective Bradbury?” he asked hopefully. By the look of him, he’d been crying.

“Yes, and you are-?”

“Tran. Kevin Tran. I um.. I’m a friend of Adam’s. I just got back into town, I’ve been away with my parents, we go camping every year, and when I heard he was missing-”

He said all of it in one fell breath and Charlie was impressed at his ability to babble.

“Please” she said as she pulled up Dean’s chair, “sit and talk to me.”

He did so, his hands worrying the front of his worn jeans in a way that suggested that he was very nervous.

“Please, Kevin” Charlie said gently in her best “skittish witness”-voice. “If you know anything-”

“He was fucking him.” Kevin said, looking up at her through thick dark lashes.

“Who?” Charlie didn’t follow.

“Mr Carrington. Adam was screwing him.”

Well, that was… not completely unexpected, Charlie thought.

“Are you sure about this?” She asked instead.

Kevin nodded, blushing as red as his shirt.

“Adam showed me some texts Mr Carrington had sent him.”

“Texts?”

“Yeah, like sexting.”

Charlie felt her cheeks warm. “I see.”

“I think Mr C has killed him” Kevin said with conviction. “Adam said he didn’t want to lie and hide anymore, wanted to be a real couple. I think Mr C didn’t want people knowing he was screwing Adam and killed him and now he’s on the run.”

Charlie thought of the bodies in the morgue.

“Thank you Kevin” she said diplomatically, “we’re going to look into this.”

 

* * *

 

When Dean pulled up outside of Castiel's house, he was everything but cheerful. It had been a bad day, okay? First he’d had to go tell Mrs Milligan that her son was dead, and try to avoid answering her questions. Then he’d spent the afternoon interviewing friends of Jessica Moore who had proven completely useless. They'd known nothing, Jessica and Sam were happy together, nobody would want to hurt them. The usual bullshit, and Dean wondered if any of them had known Sam and Jessica at all. 

 

He forgot all about work, however, when the door opened. Castiel was wearing jeans this time, and Dean had to battle down the urge to rip of said jeans and suck his dick in the doorway. 

But Charlie had spent half an hour coaching him into behaving like a real person and not a sex addict, so he tampered down the instinct and instead handed over the apple pie he’d stopped along the way to buy. He was rewarded by a warm smile that made his insides flutter.

“Come in” Cas said, stepping aside and letting him pass. This time, Dean actually took in the house interiors. It was warm, and cozy, and smaller than expected from outside. The theme seemed to be a combination of scatterbrained professor and lumberjack, with heavy furniture and dark rugs mostly covered in books and paper.

“I’m sorry about the mess” Cas said, clearly embarrassed, as he showed the way into the small kitchen with it’s familiar bar where Dean had had the most intense orgasm in the last year just a few nights previous. It smelled like garlic and spices Dean couldn’t name, and he watched with a warm feeling in his chest as Castiel ladled pasta into two ceramic bowls with chipped edges, balancing them over to the table where Dean had already opened the bottle of sparkling water.

 

“How’ve you been?” Castiel asked after having taken his first few bites.

Dean twirled more pasta onto his fork. It was good, warm and spicy and comforting. 

“Since last time or…”

“Since the last time we had an actual conversation.” 

“It’s…” Dean considered the question. How had he been the past fifteen years? It hadn’t been easy. If he hadn’t had Charlie he probably would have been so lost in booze that he didn’t know who he was anymore. She’d gotten him sobered up. Dragged him to AA meetings. Scrubbed vomit of the floor and held his hand when he got tested because he couldn’t remember the last time he’d used a condom. She’d saved his life five times at least and how had he repaid her? By ditching her when she needed him so he could get laid. The guilt churned in his stomach like a smooth engine.

“I’m five years sober” he said eventually. Cas looked at him with quiet understanding, nodding slowly.

“Fourteen years” he offered quietly. They shared a moment, then and there. Something more than just fantastic sex.

“Since you left, then” Dean said at last, a not of bitterness in his voice. He stared intently down at his pasta.

“Yeah” Cas said softly, “since I left.”

“Why did you leave?” This time there was a bit more bitterness.

“You” Castiel admitted. Dean looked at him, eyes full of hurt.

“I’m sorry?”

“Dean, you were eighteen.” He said it as if it explained everything.

“Yeah, so?” 

“I was a stoner and you had your whole life ahead of you. I just… I needed to get back to myself. And I couldn’t do that in Lawrence.” Dean felt the old hurt well back up, remembered how it had hurt to have Cas walk away from him then. It still hurt, he found. Like a wound that had scabbed over but never really healed.

 

“I loved you” he said, surprised at his own honesty. Cas’ hand covered his own, warm and strong and so familiar.

“I know you did. But I was so fucked up, Dean. After my mom. Hell, we were all fucked up.” Dean remembered the accident; it had been in all the papers. Lilith Novak driving drunk and killing not just herself, but her youngest son, one daughter and three people in the other car. Dean had been sixteen at the time, Castiel just turned twenty.

“I’m sorry” he said, more because it was expected. 

“Thanks” Cas stared down at his empty bowl as if it held all the answers. His hand was still covering Dean’s.

“You know Gabe tried for the first time then. Me and Anna… we cut him down and did CPR until he came back. I didn’t think, then, that he’d really go through with it someday.”

 

Dean thought of Gabriel. The other man had been the same age as Dean, always laughing at something. To imagine Gabriel depressed enough to attempt suicide wasn’t something that Dean could easily accept. But the truth was that Gabriel had killed himself, jumping from the roof of a hotel downtown. And apparently it hadn’t been his first attempt.

“I’m sorry” Dean said again, this time meaning the words. He turned his hand over, intertwining his fingers with Cas’. He looked up, losing himself in sad blue eyes that were haunted by things that no one should have to experience.

Cas tried to smile, but it didn’t reach his eyes.

For several long moments they just looked at each other, green eyes sinking into blue, something soft and ephemeral shimmering between them. Then Cas spoke.

“Stay” he said simply, squeezing Dean’s hand. Dean didn’t hesitate for a moment before following him upstairs.

 


	7. Chapter 7

Charlie had a tendency to hang over people’s shoulders when they were doing shit, and right now was no exception, Dean noted as he came in to work. The guy was new though, some dude with a mullet and a really ugly green vest. They were both staring intently at a computer screen, and when Dean came closer he could hear muffled sobbing from the speakers.

“Morning” he said gruffly as he threw his empty take away mug into the nearest trash can.

Charlie waved him off in a “shut up!”-gesture as mullet guy replayed the clip again.

“There it is!” She said, “can you enhance it for me?”

“Can’t you do it yourself? You’re supposed to be good at this shit.”

“I’m a hacker” Charlie rolled her eyes, “you’re the audio expert.”

“Fine” mullet guy muttered, doing something on the computer then playing it again. The noise was weird, but somehow familiar.

“What is that noise?” Charlie complained, “I feel like I should know it.”

“Play it again” Dean demanded, leaning forward to look at what they were seeing. It was the part right before the close up of Jessica’s face, and they could see the upper part of her body against that weird metallic background they’d seen before. Mullet guy muttered something rude, but replayed the clip again. Then he did something on his computer that Dean didn’t understand, and once more played the clip. This time the sound was clearer. 

“Again” Charlie demanded, “make it clearer.”

“Look” mullet guy said, “I’m not a miracle worker.”   
“Please try, Ash” Charlie replied, her voice thick with annoyance. “We need to find her and fast.”

Ash scowled at her, but went back to working on the clip.

It too three more hearings before something clicked in Dean’s head.

“The train station” he said, “that’s an announcement.” 

Charlie startled, as if she’d forgotten he was there.

“So she’s at the train station?” 

“Or near it.” Dean turned to storm out 

“We need more information, that’s a large area to canvas.” Charlie protested, making Dean stop in his tracks.

“Fuck” he said, turning back to Ash. “Any way we can narrow it down?”

“Looks like a tunnel” Ash replied, “there are old tunnels under the station, nobody’s used them for years.”

“Then that’s where we have to search” Dean said, “Charlie-”

“I’ll call the boys in blue” she replied, already dialing. “Thanks Ash!”

 

* * *

 

Charlie crouched down, careful not to disturb the scene, and looked at Jessica’s face. She laid on her side, one arm tucked under her as if she was sleeping. Her face was peaceful, expressionless. She would have looked innocent if it wasn’t for the bruises on her arms and blood dried around her mouth. 

“How long has she been dead?” She asked Jo, who was taking pictures of the body as if she’d done it a thousand times. To be fair, she’d been working crime scenes almost as long as Dean and Charlie had.

“I’m not sure” Jo admitted, snapping a few more shots. “Three or four days. You’ll have to ask Ellen.”

“Three or four days” Dean echoed, frowning. “That means that she was dead when the video was sent to me.” 

Charlie looked up at him, her eyes worried.

“You think whoever it was killed Jessica and sat on the video? Who does that?”

“Someone who didn’t want us to find her too soon, obviously.”   
“Obviously.” 

Charlie stood up, wiping dust from her trouser legs. Then she looked around.

“Hell of a place to die” she said grimly, then frowned. “What’s that?”

“What’s what?”

“There, on the wall. It looks like writing.”

“Can we get a spotlight over here!” Dean yelled.

 

It took a bit of time, but eventually the underground cistern they were standing in was lit up, showing it’s rusted metal walls and filthy floor in all its glory. It made the woman lying in the middle of the room look even smaller, more vulnerable. It also made the writing on the wall appear, written in dark red. Dean tried to make sense of it, but couldn’t even figure out the language.

“Las- laski-” he tried, frowning.

“It’s Italian” Charlie broke in, staring down at her phone, “According to google translate, it says  _ leave all hope, ye who enter.” _

Dean stared at her blankly, but Charlie ignored him to keep googling.

“It’s Dante” she said eventually, “it’s written on the gate that’s the entrance to inferno - hell.”

“Is that it?” Dean demanded, “are we in hell? Is that what it’s all about? We’re in Dante’s inferno?”

 

* * *

 

Cas looked up from the blank page on his computer at the knock on his door.

“Enter” he called, and Pamela came in with slow, measured steps, moving her cane in front of her in a circular movement. It was wise of her to use her cane in Cas’ office, as he tended to not remember where he put things. Especially lately, but he could be excused considering what had happened.

“I brought lunch” Pamela said, offering a brown paper bag. 

“Thanks” Castiel replied and accepted it, finding a cheese and ham sandwich and a green apple inside. The mustard was sharp and tangy and matched the sweet tartness of the apple perfectly.

Pamela sat quietly on his visitor’s chair as he ate, seemingly content to listen to his chewing. When he had finished, she said;

“I was at the doctor’s today.”

“Oh?” Castiel put the apple core into the bag, scrunched it up and threw the whole mess in the general direction of the waste basket. He missed by a good foot.   
“The corneas. They didn’t take. They want to do a new operation.”

He looked at Pamela with compassion. She’d been blinded by an illness he didn’t remember the name of about two years previous, changing her whole life and not for the better. She still taught, was a well-liked teacher, but everything was much harder for her now.

“I found out who the donor was, sort of by accident.” She went on. “I don’t think I’m supposed to know, but.”

“Okay…” Castiel replied carefully, not understanding why she was telling him.

“They’re Gabriel’s” she went on, as if it was obvious and he should have figured it out himself.

Castiel closed his eyes momentarily, forcing back tears.

“I just… I wanted you to know. I have a piece of him in me.” 

Castiel nodded, wiping at his wet eyes. Gabriel’s eyes, his bright laughing eyes. They weren’t ever going to see anything now, not even through Pamela.

“For now” he said hoarsely.

Pamela cocked her head to the side, considering.

“For now” she concurred.

They sat in silence for several moments, neither knowing what to say.

Then, Castiel’s phone rang and he excused himself to answer it. The call made his brows furrow in confusion.

“Yes, that’s me” Pamela heard him say. “Why would… oh. Of course. Yes, I am available. I can be there in thirty minutes. Alright. Yes, sir.”

She wondered what it was that made his voice sound so anxious.

 

* * *

 

A decidedly exhausted Dean stumbled into the bullpen trying to juggle a cup of coffee and talk to Ellen on the phone at the same time.

“I’ve finished the autopsies on Milligan and Carrington” the coroner said, sounding tired and harried. 

“That was fast.” Some of the coffee spilled out and scalded his hand, making Dean wince in pain.

“Sleep is overrated” Ellen replied dryly. “You’ll get the reports once I’m done with them. Nothing interesting on Carrington, but I found something interesting on Milligan. He’s had a heart transplant.”

“A heart transplant?” Dean gave up the juggling and put his coffee down on Gordon’s desk. The older cop, a dark skinned man with a severe face and bushy eyebrows, gave him a dirty look but he ignored it. “How can you tell?”

“Are you questioning me, Winchester?” 

“No, of course not” Dean backpedalled so fast he nearly gave himself whiplash. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

“Good. You’re not too old to be taken over my knee, you know.”

“No, ma’am.”

Seemingly satisfied, Ellen hung up in her usual abrupt way and left Dean staring dumble att a still scowling Gordon like an idiot. Eventually, he managed to put his phone back in his pocket and gave an apologetic smile. He picked up his coffee cup and walked over to his desk. A heart transplant. Could it be significant? He made a note to go to the hospital as soon as possible, try to find out where the heart had come from. It could be something there. 

 

He had barely sat down at his desk when the doors opened and, much to his shock, Castiel walked in escorted by two boys in blue wheeling a cart with a large paper model on it.

“Good morning Dean” he said politely, “your captain called. Where can I find him?”

“Uhhh… in his office. I’ll show you.”

It felt awkward to have Cas in his work place, but Dean didn’t really have any say in it. So instead he got up, and showed Castiel to Bobby’s office.

“Cas- uuuhh Mr Novak is here.” he stuttered as he opened the door.

“Professor Novak” Bobby said as he wheeled himself out from behind his desk, “thank you for being able to come so soon. Has Detective Bradbury briefed you?”

“Only that you are working on case that’s connected to Dante.” Castiel replied, looking adorably confused. At least Dean thought it was adorable.

“Winchester, gather everyone in conference room 2. The professor is going to give us a lecture.” Dean looked briefly as Castiel’s blushing face, then looked away, feeling his chest tightening. He really just wanted to hold the other man, maybe kiss away the apprehensive look on his face.

 

* * *

 

“Thank you, please put it here” Castiel gestured to the table in the front of the cramped conference room, and the two police officers that had wheeled the cart sat down the model where he pointed. Then they left the room, after a dismissive look from Bobby.

“Alright, so…” Castiel licked his lips, clearly nervous. “Dante was a 14th century italian poet who is most famous for his  _ Divine Comedy _ , which you have found a quote from. It is a story about a man who journeys through hell and purgatory to eventually reach heaven. It is famous for its explicit descriptions of hell and the sinners punished there.”

He was interrupted by a scoff from Luther,  a young cop with dark hair and warm brown eyes. 

“What’s funny about walking through hell?” He asked sardonically, leading to snickers from the other cops.

“Shut up” Bobby barked, silencing the amusement.

“It is a comedy in that it ends happily, with Dante ascending to heaven” Castiel explained as if there hadn’t been an interruption. “The original meaning of  _ comedy _ is a story with a happy ending.” Castiel fiddled with the model, a clearly nervous gesture.

“In the story, Dante awakes from a bad dream to find himself in  _ selva oscura _ , a dark wood, which turns out to be hell. He meets a damned soul there, Virgil, who will serve as his guide as he journeys through hell, meeting sinners along the way.”

Castiel gestured to his model, making eyes turn to it. 

“The gate of hell has an inscription above it,  _ Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate -  _ abandon all hope, ye who enter. It leads to the vestibule of hell. It is a place neither in hell or out of it, but eternally in between. It is where the uncommitted are punished.“

“The uncommitted?” Charlie asked, looking for all the world like an eager student.

“Yes, it means those who in life took no sides, neither good nor evil.  _ For these defects, and for no other evil, we now are lost.  _ In death they are made to chase a blank banner, stung relentlessly by swarms of wasps and hornets, symbolically stinging then into action.”

Charlie and Dean looked at each other, neither saying anything, both thinking of the bees and maggots in the van that had started this entire nightmare. Then Dean turned to Castiel, voicing a question.

“Any maggots?” 

Castiel looked surprised, but nodded.

“Yes, on the ground maggots and worms writhe in the filth at their feet, feeding on the mixture of blood and tears from the sinners.”

“So Wesson was a sinner?” Someone asked.

“Wesson?” Castiel asked in confusion.

“Stung to death by bees” Charlie replied grimly and Castiel paled.

“Is this why I’m here?” He asked, staring at them in shock.

“Yes, professor” Charlie said, “we need your help. Tell us about hell. What’s the next part?” Castiel licked his lips, sorting through his notes like a nervous high schooler giving a presentation. Then he straightened his back and went on. 

“Dante passes across the river Acheron, ferried by Charon the eternal ferry man. He comes to the first circle, Limbo. Those that reside here could not or did not choose christ, and they languish eternally in the shores. Virgil, the guide, is one of these lost souls. The rest are mostly the unbaptized and pagans. Amongst these we find Julius Caesar and Saladin. Next we have the circle of lust, which is the second circle and where the true punishments of hell really begins.”

Dean wished he had a notebook, because he felt like there was going to be a pop quiz down the line. Castiel went on, hitting his stride. He held the cops spellbound with the rise and fall of his voice as he lectured them.

“This is also where we meet the first real instance of  _ contrapasso _ \- the sin that is being punished is turned to its opposite in hell. Here the damned souls, that in life  _ drifted into self-indulgence and were carried away by their passions _ are now thrown back and forth by the terrible winds of a violent storm, eternally ripping them apart. Dante thought this the least heinous of sins and therefore the punishment is relatively mild.”

Dean thought of Michael and Adam, hooked together and left to the brutal winds of that cold night, bleeding out slowly. Sinners. Was that the link? They were sinners?

“The third circle” Castiel continued, “is the circle of gluttony.” 

Dean startled, forcing himself to once more pay attention.

“It is a freezing mire in which the gluttonous lie, a vile putrid slush created by ceaseless icy rain. Sightless and thoughtless they are punished for subjecting their reason to a voracious appetite. Uhm… this is rather awful. They are forced to gorge on each other’s flesh and excrement until their stomachs burst.”

Dean shuddered, thinking of Jessica Moore. He made a mental note to check her stomach contents at earliest convenience. If Ellen didn’t know yet, he was going to make her find out.

“So tell us, what’s the next circle?”

 

* * *

 

“You were right” Ellen said when she met Dean after lunch. Well, she’d probably had lunch. He hadn’t, too busy blowing Cas in the rec room. “Stomach full of human flesh and excrement. Oh, it gets better.”

“Better?” Dean felt nauseous already, and apprehension was building in his stomach. Coroners had a really weird sense of humor, after all.

“We checked the flesh for DNA, and we won’t get the results for a few days yet, but I’m pretty sure it’s her own.”

“Wait, what?”

“Her tongue, to be more precise. She’s been made to eat her own tongue.”

Dean groaned, his stomach rolling.

“Fantastic” he managed, “just fantastic. That’s just  _ gross _ .”

“If you say so.” Ellen shrugged, then handed him an evidence bag. “Also, we found this.”

He accepted the bag, looking at it’s contents. A pretty silver bracelet with an engraving. He could almost make out he words as he twisted and turned it over and over in his hands. Then he saw what it read.  _ Memento Mori _ . Remember that you shall die. In that moment he recognized the bracelet; it used to belong to his ex girlfriend three lovers back. Bela Talbot. When he turned it over, he could confirm that it had her initials on the back.


	8. Chapter 8

Cas’ phone rang in the middle of boxing up Gabriel’s big kitchen, and he pulled it out with a trembling hand. Seeing Dean’s number on the display, he immediately answered, hoping for a much needed distraction. Gabriel had loved to cook, and Castiel had lost count on how many boxes he’d filled with various kitchen gadgets so far.

“Hello? Dean?”

“Hey Cas” Dean said by way of greeting. “Listen, I thought of something. About Dante.”

Castiel felt the disappointment deep in his stomach. He wasn’t sure what he had expected, but not a call about the presentation he’d held earlier.

“Oh” he said, slowly as he put down a colander, “was something unclear?”

“No, no, it was great” Dean sounded harried. “I just wondered… are there any sinners that are saved? Or asking to be saved?”

That was an odd question, Castiel thought and had to really think about it for a few moments.

“No…” he said slowly, “the sinners in Dante’s inferno are resigned to their damnation. They accept their fate.”

Dean muttered a curse Castiel pretended he couldn’t hear, then continued;

“You sure? No reference to save me?”

“No, none. I’m sure.”

“Alright, thanks. Oh, by the way, how’s dinner tomorrow sound? I’ll bring dessert.”

Castiel couldn’t help but laugh.

“Last two times you were dessert, Dean.”

“Didn’t hear you complaining” he could hear the leer in the other man’s voice and it made a coil of desire start to wind deep in his stomach.

“Tomorrow” he replied, voice slightly rougher than normal. “Bring yourself.”

“And dessert?” Dean teased.

“For dessert.”

There was a moment of silence, crackling with the same passion that had been there so long ago and still smouldered between them. 

“I’ll be there at eight” Dean said, his voice surprisingly soft. Then there was a click, and Castiel was left with the phone in his hand and heat pooling in his groin. 

“Who was that?” Anna stuck her head in through the doorway, a frown marring her usually placid features.

“No one” Castiel replied distractedly, not wanting to get into another argument. Anna didn’t like Dean for some reason, and was adamant Castiel not see him. He had no idea why.

 

Dean stared at his phone for a moment, then turned to Charlie. She was staring out at the late afternoon sun as if it could tell her a secret if she just waited long enough. 

“You okay?” He said quietly, making her startle.

“Yeah. Fine.” He cast her a dubious glance but didn’t argue. Instead, he started the car back up and started driving towards Bela Talbot’s address. 

“So tell me about this woman” Charlie said eventually, when the silence became too heavy for both of them.

“Not much to tell. She liked her guys with money, and she bought and sold a lot of stocks when I knew her. I don’t know what she’s doing these days, it’s been years.”

Charlie went back to staring out of the window, neither of them talking about what they were both thinking. The next circle in Dante’s inferno was the circle of greed.

“How you holding up?” Dean asked eventually, trying for nonchalant but only getting concerned.

“I could ask the same thing.” Charlie replied. “Your brother…”

“I didn’t know him. We… they didn’t want to adopt a kid with issues. A baby was easier. But you- your mom-”

Charlie’s jaw clenched. She looked somewhere between furious and heartbroken.

“I’m gonna get the son of a bitch that did it” she vowed, anger tingeing her voice. Dean nodded. He could understand where she came from, wanting nothing more than to get the bastard that had hurt his Sammy.

 

\---

 

“Hello!” Dean called as he banged on the door of the expensive studio apartment that was Bela Talbot’s address. “It’s the police! Anyone home?”

There was no answer, but then again neither of them had really expected it. Dean knocked again, harder this time. “POLICE!”

“Maybe she isn’t home” Charlie offered, trying to keep Dean from doing something stupid.

She failed miserably, as the only response to her comment was Dean kicking down the door.

“Dude! Probably cause!” Charlie squeaked as she chased after him into the apartment. It was small, but had a high ceiling with elegant windows. One of them, Charlie noted, was smashed to pieces and she made a mental note to step carefully so as not to get any glass on her. Then she looked over Dean’s shoulder and saw what he was staring at transfixed, and forget all worries about glass cutting into her new shoes.

“We need to call it in” she breathed.

Bela Talbot lay in the middle of her apartment, sprawled on the floor in an unnatural pose with arms and legs going every which way. Her dark hair was spread around her head like the mockery of a halo and she was wearing what Charlie knew to be a very expensive leather skirt, as she’d admired it in a shop window a few days previous. But that wasn’t what had Dean horrified. 

Bela’s torso was cracked open, blood and guts spilling out in a way that was horrifyingly gruesome. From where she stood, Charlie could see pieces of ribs rising around the heavy stone lodged in the woman’s chest like worshippers around the altar of their god. Bela’s eyes were wide open, her face frozen in an expression of pure terror with her mouth open in a scream that would never be heard. She looked like a saint of old, martyred less than three feet from her own bed. On the wall above said bed, SAVE ME was written in letters that had dripped and ran down the white wall, making Charlie think it had been written in Bela’s blood.

“Welcome to the circle of greed” Dean managed eventually, his voice shaking.

Charlie didn’t reply, simply pulled out her phone. 

“I’m calling it in” she said.

 

\---

 

Dean found himself both help- and useless as he loitered outside the kicked-in door, making sure no nosy neighbours tried to sneak a peak on the horrors behind it as he waited for reinforcements to arrive. Well, really he was waiting for Jo, and his frazzled nerves really wanted her to show up as soon as possible so he could go do something normal like knock on doors and search for witnesses. This horror landscape that he had just witnessed was just way beyond him, a normal small city cop that had never had to deal with anything worse than a domestic gone bad. Now he was up to his eyeballs with the sickest murders he’d ever seen, and they were nowhere near close to catching the freak who was doing it. 

Charlie came out and stood beside him, her features haunted as she contemplated what they had both just seen.

“This guy is a psycho, Dean” she said quietly. “How do you catch a psycho?”

“I don’t know” he admitted in the same hushed tones, “but we better figure it out fast.”

 

\---

 

Across town, at the same time, a dark haired woman in her forties was navigating her way into the Novak and sons funeral parlor. It was one of the nicer ones, with tall windows and wood panelled floors, elegant and understated. Not that it mattered one fig to Pamela Barnes, given that she couldn’t see them. Blinded by illness since a few years, Pamela had grown used to eternal darkness. She’d held hopes for the surgery to change the corneas in her eyes would help, but it hadn’t. She thought of Gabriel again, sad that it had taken his death to give her a chance to see again. A chance that hadn’t even worked. It felt like such a waste; he’d had so much to live for. And now he was gone. She wondered if he would have cared that the surgery didn’t take. She cared, but she was probably the only one. Randall hadn’t really cared either, but then again her brother had always been a hopeless drunk. That was why she was here, really. Randall’s liver had finally given up and now it was time to bury him.

“Miss Barnes” Came a soft, kind voice from somewhere to her left. “My name is Chuck Novak. We spoke on the phone.” Pamela nodded, taking a step toward the voice and holding out her hand. It was clasped by one not much larger than hers, soft as silk and warm. 

“Please let me show you the way to my office” he said calmly. The direction and timber of his voice gave her the impression of an older man, slightly shorter than her, and she took his hand and allowed herself to be led into the office. She was grateful he didn’t attempt conversation, as this let her count her steps in peace.

“There is a chair right ahead of you” said Mr Novak as he closed the door and Pamela used her cane to feel for it. She found it reasonably quickly and sat down, smoothing down her skirt as she did so.

“I’m very sorry for your loss” said Mr Novak.

“Thank you” Pamela replied, thinking that she wasn’t really sorry. They’d never been close, and after his drinking escalated they had barely talked at all except for when he wanted to borrow money.

“Now, about the funeral…”

 

\---

 

“Jo found medicines in the bathroom” Charlie said as they finally gave up their search in finding someone who had been home in the early morning when Bela had met her terrible fate. “I forgot to mention.”

“Everyone has medicines in the bathroom.”

“Yeah, but this kind is special. It’s for people who’ve had transplants.” 

Dean frowned, something niggling at his mind. Then he remembered.

“Adam Milligan had recently had a transplant. The heart. Is there any way to tell what organ Bela had?”

“Not that I know of, and Jo didn’t seem to know either. We’ll have to wait and ask Ellen. Do you think there might be a connection?” Charlie tilted her head to the side, considering.

“Maybe. I don’t know. Hell, I feel like I don’t know anything.”

They slowly made their way out to Dean’s car.

“What’s going on Dean?” Charlie asked as she fastened her seatbelt.

“If I knew” Dean replied grimly and started the car. “Where to?”

“Home” Charlie replied tiredly. “I’m gonna get an early night.”

Dean nodded in compassion. It’d been a hellish few weeks, and he really wanted to get an early night too. Except he was finding it hard to sleep alone, now that his body had been reminded of how it felt to have someone beside him. To have Cas beside him. 

He dropped Charlie off and drove to Castiel’s place.

 

\---

 

Castiel felt reasonably impressed they actually managed to have both dinner and dessert before Dean tried to shove his tongue down his throat and his hand down the front of Castiel’s black slacks. Clearly, in some ways Dean was still eighteen. Not that he was complaining as they trailed clothes from the kitchen to the bedroom, kissing frantically as they went. 

After an almost violent bout of wild lovemaking that ended up with scratches all the way down Castiel’s back and Dean still shuddering and whimpering in aftershocks for several minutes, Castiel decided that post-coitus was as as good as any time to actually talk.

 

“Something’s bothering you” he said in his usual straight-forward manner, not seeing any reason to beat about the bush.

Dean blinked at him, still slightly glassy eyed from his orgasm.

“Just that you’re all the way over there” the cop growled, reaching out for Cas who came willingly into his arms, content for a few moments to lie still in Dean’s embrace as their bodies cooled and their breaths returned to normal.

Then he tried again.

“I need you to know you can talk to me.”

Dean was silent for several moments, long enough for Castiel to wonder if he’d fallen asleep. Then he said,

“Remember I told you about my brother.”

Castiel nodded. It was the first and only time in his life that he’d seen Dean cry. He’d been seventeen in the back of Castiel’s car, so beautiful it hurt to look at him.

“I remember” he confirmed, keeping his voice soft and gentle as if he was soothing a skittish animal.

“Well” Dean smiled joylessly, “it seems like I found him.”

“That’s a good thing, isn’t it?”

“Not when it’s in the back of a van stung to death by bees.”

It took Castiel a few moments to make sense of what Dean had just told him, then he felt his heart break for the other man.

“Oh Dean.”

Dean looked up at him, bright green eyes clouded with tears.

“I’ve been looking for thirty years and he…” 

He sniffled, then closed his eyes hard as if that would help hold the tears at bay. Of course it didn’t, and Castiel watched in dismay as tears slipped unbidden and unwanted from under Dean’s long lashes, wetting his flushed cheeks. 

Cas pulled him close, wrapping his arms around Dean and rocking him slowly, letting him cry himself out against his chest. 

“I couldn’t protect him” Dean cried, “I couldn’t protect him.” Castiel wondered if he was referring to as adults or when they were children, separated by the cruel circumstances of fate.

 

Eventually, the tears ran dry as tears always do, and Dean lay drained and wretched in Castiel’s arms, nose buried in his skin and arms tightly around him. 

“I’m so sorry” he whispered into Dean’s golden locks. “Oh Dean, I’m so sorry.”

 

* * *


	9. Chapter 9

Dean picked up a grumpy Charlie and headed over to the hospital, hoping to be able to talk to someone about the possible connection between the victims. He knew that he most likely wouldn’t get anything without a court order, but he was too damn restless to sit at the station and do nothing while waiting for the next body to show up. If they were real lucky, they’d find a chatty nurse or two that he could work his charms on. 

Charlie was quiet during the entire ride, seemingly lost in thoughts as she stared out the window into the gentle sun of the day. It wasn’t until Dean pulled up outside the hospital and started looking for parking that she spoke.

“It feels weird to be here not visiting mum.” Her voice was quiet, contemplative.

Dean nodded silently, not sure what to respond. Lucky for him, she didn’t seem to need a response, instead content to get out of the car and start walking towards the entrance, leaving him little to do but following her.

“Where do we go?” She asked as she looked around the brightly lit foyer, and Dean stopped helplessly. He hadn’t thought that far.

Charlie solved his problem, however, by heading over the the information desk and giving the woman behind it a friendly smile.

“Who do we talk to about transplants?” Charlie asked, getting an odd look in reply. She waved her badge.

“We’re working on a case where there are several people who have had transplants and we want to know more about that.” She explained, and got an even odder look for her trouble.

“What angle are you flying, detectives?” The woman, Karen, said suspiciously.

“Look Karen” Dean flashed his most winning smile, pleased to see it made the middle-aged Karen blush like a schoolgirl.

“We’ve discovered that a group of people have in common that they’ve all had some organ transplanted. We are trying to find if there is a connection deeper than that.”

“If you want to know about donors, you are going to have to come in with a court warrant.” Karen said apologetically, adjusting her badly dyed yellow hair in a way that was probably meant to seem coquettish. Dean nodded his understanding, and Charlie thanked her profusely as he dragged her towards the stairs.

“Where are we going?” She asked, confused.

“We’re going to track down Anna Milton, Cas’ sister. Maybe she can help us.”

Charlie rolled her eyes at him and went back to the desk. Karen gave her a disapproving glance.

“We’re looking for Anna Milton” she said sweetly, “do you have any way of checking if she is working today?”

“Hold on” Karen said, looking dean over again like he was a piece of steak at a butcher’s shop. She did something on her computer, freshly manicured nails clacking over the keyboard.

“Not signed in” she said eventually, looking up at them. “Anything else?”

“No, thank you” Charlie said politely. Dean just shook his head, and they turned to leave the hospital.

 

“Now what?” Charlie demanded once they were back in the car, but Dean didn’t answer. He already had his phone out, dialling Castiel to ask for Anna’s number.

 

\---

 

“Novak Funeral Services” came the smooth female voice over the line and Dean grimaced. He still had no idea why she disliked him, but that was neither here nor there.

“Anna, hi. It’s Dean Winchester.”

The voice turned frosty.

“Dean. what do you want?”

“I wondered if you know anything about transplants.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Transplants. Our victims have it in common. Well, some of them.” He waited with bated breath. Finally, Anna replied and he could hear the confusion in her voice.

“Well… it’s not as uncommon as you think. There’d be a lot of people leading good lives if more people donated, but I’m sure that you're asking.”

“No, actually I was wondering if there is some way to find out who donated the organs.” Dean had no idea where that had come from, but the moment the words left his mouth he knew they had been the right thing to say. Beside him, Charlie’s eyes grew huge.

“Well, yes.” Anna replied, “the hospital records everything. Including the donor. The records are sealed, however, so you’re going to need a court order to see them.”

“Thanks Anna, I’m not gonna keep you any longer.”

“Very well. Good day.” and then she was gone, just like that.

“What is it with her” Dean muttered as he put his phone back in his pocket.

“You think there’s something there” Charlie said. It was not a question.

“I think it’s worth checking. So far we know that Adam Milligan had a heart transplant, and Ellen called me earlier to say that Bela had a new kidney. Like brand new - the surgical scars were still fresh. What if he’s going after people that have just had transplant surgery?”   
“That’s a lot of people, even in Lawrence. And what’s the connection to Sam and Jessica? Neither of them had surgery.”

“That we know of. We need to look into them again.”

“And what if there is a link? How do we continue?”

Dean mulled it over as he worked his way through the traffic.

“We need to find a heretic that’s just had transplant surgery” he said dryly when he managed to gather his thoughts.

Charlie rolled her eyes.

“A heretic in a burning tomb.” She replied sardonically, thinking back to what Castiel had told them about the damned in the sixth circle. The sinners there were made to lie in burning tombs as a punishment for their false words in life, what Castiel had referred to as ‘violence against God’.

“I’ll call Jody” Charlie said, referring to judge Jody Mills whom they usually contacted since she was a reasonable woman who rather liked both Dean and Charlie and was more likely to give them the warrant than any other judge in town. 

 

\---

 

Pamela Barnes woke up in darkness. She didn’t know where she was and didn’t remember how she got there. There had been something off with her smoothie that she made every night but she didn’t know. Shortly after drinking it she’d passed out on her own floor and now she was awake, somewhere she didn’t know. When trying to move, she found her hands bound and her mouth gagged. she was in a small room, no a box, and there seemed to be no manner of escape. She desperately struggled against her bonds, trying to scream, but it was useless. She couldn’t move and she couldn’t make any noise. In the distance, muffled as if a wall of wood stood between them, she could hear a voice recite a verse from the bible.

 

“...And so we commend this man’s soul to his lord” the priest droned as Chuck Novak listened with half an ear, thinking how sad it was that no one had bothered to show up to the funeral. The sister had seemed such a sweet woman the few times he’d met her, but not particularly sad that her brother had passed. Then again, everyone showed their grief differently, he thought and his thoughts went unbidden to his second eldest boy, Gabriel, now nearly two months in the ground. He had never really seen Gabriel’s pain, he admitted to himself as he sat there and listened to an eulogy that was given to a room empty apart from him and the priest. 

 

Then the funeral was over, and the coffin holding Randall Barnes dead body was carried out to the crematory, where it was placed on the conveyor belt leading into the furnace. The noise from the conveyor belt and the flames that were lit once the door clanged shut were loud enough to muffle Pamela’s terrified screams.

 

\---

 

He wasn’t supposed to be in here, Castiel thought. They’d had a deal since they were teens; never go into the other’s room unless it was a life or death situation. And it wasn’t, but still something drove him to go in. Perhaps it was that he felt so very alone at this time and needed to feel close to someone. So he opened the door and went in to the room where Anna was staying in while she emptied the apartment she’d shared with Gabriel and got ready to sell it. It was as neat as a pin, but then Anna was always neat and organized. The blue bedspread was completely flat, in the way that made you think you could probably bounce a coin off of it. The pillows were neat, too, and Cas sat down carefully on the edge of the bed so as not to disturb anything. The smell of Anna’s perfume was heavy in the air and it made him want to cry; Gabriel had been the one to buy her a bottle for each birthday in June and on Christmas. 

 

As he sat there and looked around at Anna’s few belongings, as neat as the bed, he spotted something that didn’t suit. It was a book, thick and heavy with a dark leather cover. It was the kind of book that spoke of hand binding, and had probably been expensive. It wasn’t Anna’s style at all, and without knowing why he went over and picked it up. It wasn’t any of his business, it might be a diary or something, but he couldn’t resist looking through it.

 

The first thing he came across was a quote from Dante, one he recognized from canto V; “There is no greater pain than to remember, in our present grief, past happiness.” It wasn’t in Annas handwriting, but in Gabriel’s, and thus Castiel turned another page and was confronted by a photo of Gabriel hugging another man. They were laughing, happy, and it was obvious to see that Gabriel adored the man, looking at him like he was his whole world.

 

The man was handsome, taller than Gabriel with dark eyes and dark hair that hung down around his face, framing lean features and making him look almost otherworldly. As Castiel turned pages, there were more pictures of the same man; some of them in clearly intimate settings, such as lounging half naked in a bed. Every page oozed love and affection. Then the theme of the book changed, becoming darker, and the Dante quotes came more often. On one page, the first quote was written over and over again in small, angry letters as if Gabriel had been beside himself when he wrote them. Then came the picture of the trees. Gnarled, worn, with thin limbs reaching for a distant sky, and something started to move in Castiel’s mind. Was this why Gabriel had ended his life? He didn’t know.

But he sank down slowly onto the floor, clutching the book, and cried. 

 

\---

 

The call came in the middle of a very late lunch for Dean and Charlie, consisting of greasy burgers and fries swimming in oil at a dive about five minutes drive from the station. 

“Hello?” Charlie said into her phone, then early dropped her glass of soda. “What?” she sounded incredulous, but waved desperately at Dean who flagged down the waitress and paid as Charlie stayed on the phone. 

“What was that about?” Dean asked once she finally hung up and stood from her chair so fast it nearly toppled over.

“The burning tomb” she hissed at him. “We need to go. Now. did you you tip?” He hadn’t actually, thinking the food shitty enough it didn’t warrant a tip, but a dark look from his partner made him put down an extra fiver. Charlie had got through the academy bussing tables at a dive worse than the one they’d eaten at today and was adamant that you always tip, no matter how bad the food had been.

Scrambling to keep up with her as she stormed out of the restaurant, Dena was mostly left in the dust not understanding what had her in such a state.

Once out in the car, doors closed so that they couldn’t be overheard, Charlie explained.

“A crematorium called in to the police about fifteen minutes ago. They’ve found too many remains after a coffin.”

“Yeah, so?” Dean didn’t get it. What was so special about that? Everyone made mistakes.

“Enough for  _ two people _ , Dean. And get this; in the remains they found a pacemaker.”

Dean still didn’t get it and Charlie made a frustrated noise.

“The deceased didn’t  _ have _ a pacemaker! It’s one of those things that has to be noted before the cremation.”

It finally clicked in Dean’s brain.

“You think someone else was burned along with the dead body.” He said grimly. Charlie nodded.

“And if we can get the license number of that pacemaker we can find who they are.” she pulled out her phone again, dialling. He left her to it, focusing instead of driving back to the station. He was really hating this case.


	10. Chapter 10

Lucky for Dean and Charlie, Jody Mills was an efficient woman and by the time they had identified the pacemaker as belonging to Pamela Barnes they had a warrant for any medical files pertaining to the victims of the serial killer that seemed to be leading them on a merry chase through hell.

 

Dean left Charlie to call the hospital and instead called Cas, needing to know what they were looking for next.

“Well, uhm…” Cas sounded tired, worn out, but he still tried his best to help. “As I said before, in the sixth circle of hell you find the heretics and priests, punished by being trapped in burning tombs.”

Dean nodded, thinking of Pamela. He hadn’t known her, but her death had been horrifying. 

“Yeah, I remember that. What’s next, circle seven?”

“Correct” Castiel said, sounding like a college professor. “Circle seven is composed of three rings, holding those that have been violent, either against against god, man or self. The first are those violent against man, like murderers and tyrants. They are made to lie in Phlegethon, a river of boiling blood and fire.  _ As they wallowed in blood during their lives, so they are immersed in the boiling blood forever, each according to the degree of his guilt.” _

Dean made a quick note on an old napkin from a pizza place.

“Boiling river? Jeez, Cas, this is some sick shit.”

“Sicker than being trapped in a burning tomb for all eternity?” Cas replied sardonically and Dean winced, once more thinking of Pamela.

“Fair enough. What’s next?”

“That’s the, if you ask me, saddest place in hell. The wood of suicides.”

“The wood of suicides?”

“Yes.  _ The moment that the violent soul departs it drops into the wood. _ ”

Dean shuddered.

“Suicide is a sin?” He asked, incredulous.

“Yes, sadly. They’re trapped in the trees, denied of form in death as they refused form in life.”

Castiel was clearly going to say something else, but just then Charlie waved at Dean and he was forced to end the call.

“I’m going to have to call you back later, okay?”

Cas stared down at the thick book laid open in his lap, slowly stroking the pages. “Yeah” he agreed quietly, “later.”

 

“Was that Cas?” Charlie demanded as soon as Dean had hung up. “Call him back!”

“Why?” Dean asked, not understanding.

“Pamela Barnes! She worked at the college! Same institution as him. Taught pagan religions!”

“A heretic” Dean murmured, picking his phone back up. Then he thought better of it, instead standing to pull on his jacket.

“I’ll go talk to him” he said brusquely. Charlie frowned. 

“I should come with you” she insisted, but Dean shook his head.

“No, I’ll go alone. It’ll be fine. You look into the transplantation angle, the files should be here soon.”

Charlie didn’t look too happy, but eventually she nodded her acquiescence and watched as he left the station. She found herself wondering uncharitably how much talking was going to be done once Dean got to Castiel’s place.

 

\---

 

Dean rang the doorbell but received no answer, so he let himself in.

“Cas?” He called, almost hesitant. “Hello?”

“Upstairs!” Came the muffled response, almost too faint to hear. But Dean had been listening. He took the stairs two steps at a time, heart seizing in his chest that something might really be wrong. 

 

He found Castiel in a guest room that smelled of perfume, a room he hadn’t been in before. He sat huddled on the floor by a bookcase, back pressed against it as if he wanted to disappear. He was crying, fat tears slipping down his cheeks as he clutched a thick book with a leather spine. The look on his face put all thoughts of Pamela Barnes straight out of Dean’s head.

 

“My brother is dead” he choked out, and Dean felt his heart ache. He crouched down carefully in front of Cas, trying to be as gentle as possible as he replied,

“I know.”

“He killed himself.” Castiel cried, clutching the book like a lifeline. Perhaps it was finally hitting home that Gabriel was really gone, wasn’t going to come back. Dean felt helpless, not sure what to do when faced with so much raw grief.

“I’m so sorry” he said, keeping his voice neutral.

Castiel nodded slowly, his grip on the book turning a little less white-knuckled as he slowly became aware of Dean’s presence.

 

“He made this book” he sobbed, “pouring out his pain. And I didn’t see it. We didn’t see it. He was… he was crying himself to sleep at night and nobody heard him.”

Dean held out a hand, wanting to understand.

“Can I see it?” 

Castiel held on, unwilling to let go, but eventually Dean managed to pry the book from him. He took it gingerly, opening it and starting to turn pages. The first thing he saw was a picture of a man he recognized; he had seen him before. In a van, what felt like an eternity ago.

“Sam...” he whispered, horrified.

Castiel sobbed.

“He broke his heart.” he managed.

Dean nodded slowly.

“He dumped Gabriel for Jessica. Or he cheated. We’ll never know.”

Castiel reached out for the book and Dean gave it to him.

“Does anyone else know of the book?” Dean asked, feeling like there was something there. Something important.

Castiel shook his head, then nodded.

“Anna, obviously” he rubbed his face. “This is her room.”

Dean nodded again.

“Want me to stay with you?” He asked, but before Castiel could reply Dean’s phone rang.

“Shit” he muttered as he pulled it out, saw that it was Charlie.

“I’m sorry, I have to take this.”

 

He stood up, turning his back on Castiel for some modicum of privacy, before answering.

“Hey, Charlie, this isn’t a good time-”

“I don’t CARE if it’s a good time!” Charlie sounded upset, at the end of her rope. “Dean, I’m standing on the edge of the river looking down at another one!”

Dean froze, the last thing he wanted to hear what his partner had just said. 

“Are you sure?”

“Yes! SAVE ME is carved into his freaking back!” 

“Do we have ID?” Dean asked, trying to stall for time. He didn't want to leave Cas when he was still crying softly behind him.

“Yeah. I ID’d him. It’s Gordon.”

_ Gordon?  _ As in one of their own?   
“Who the hell kills a cop!” Dean exploded.

“Whoever this Dante freak is!” Charlie replied just as hotly. “Now get your ass down here!”

“Okay, okay, I’m on my way. Where exactly are you?”

She gave him the directions to a spot he knew well, popular amongst lovers. 

“I’m on my way” he sighed deeply and hung up. Then he turned back to Castiel.

“I’m so sorry, I-”

“You have to go” Castiel replied,wiping his face. “I understand. There’s another one.”

Dean nodded grimly, still not wanting to go.

“Cas, I need to know if there is anything, anything at all, in Dante that can help us catch this guy. Anything.”

Castiel frowned, clearly thinking it over. Then he spoke slowly, thoughtfully.

“Uhm… well, the person in the burning river… Dante hated them.“

“He hated them?” Dean repeated, incredulous.

“Yeah. Felt they deserved their punishment.” 

Dean turned to go, then thought of something.

“Burning river?”

“The next sin in line is violence against man. The sinners are made to lie in a burning river. Didn’t I tell you this?”

“Yeah, you did. I just needed a refresher course. Thanks Cas.”

“You’re welcome.”

“I’ll be back later, okay?” He didn’t know as he said it, what was next to transpire before he could make it back to Cas.

 

\---

 

Dean recognised the area immediately as he parked his car and started moving over to the sealed off area where he could see his partner waiting in clear agitation. It was a famous spot for make-out sessions, he’d even gone up there once or twice. Never with Cas though. But he also recognised it from one of the photos in Gabriel’s book; one where Sam was lying on a blanket, a pic-nic basket beside him and an inviting smile on his lips. Now, however, there was no warmth and gentleness bout the area. Instead there were police and CSI and a sense of foreboding in the air. 

 

Charlie came storming towards him the moment she spotted him.

“This is insane” was her greeting, “Dean, we have to get this guy. Fast. This is  _ sick. _ ”

He had to agree with her. The murder of one of their own was sick, hell, it was awful. 

“Are you sure it’s Gordon?” 

“I talked to him this morning. Yes I’m sure!” There was hysteria in Charlie’s voice and he did his best to calm her.

“Look, I believe you, it’s just that I can barely believe that one of our own is actually dead. Murdered, by the look of things.”

Dean moved over to where Jo was crouched down, taking pictures. He could clearly see the ripped shirt and the words SAVE ME carved into Gordon’s back. 

 

“How do you count a cop as violent against man?” Dean said rhetorically, but Charlie took him on his word.

“Are you kidding? He’s had more warnings than the firewall on a virus infected computer! The only reason they haven’t kicked him out of the force yet is… I don’t know what is! Violent against man? Hell yeah! But he was one of  _ ours! _ ”

Well, she was right, he had to give her that.

“But why him? Cas said that Dante hated the sinner in this part. That they deserved what they got.”

“Perhaps he pissed of the wrong person” Charlie offered, turning to look out over the water. It really was a beautiful place, dotted with flowers and emphasised by the murmur of the water sweeping past, even if Dean would probably never be able to go here again without thinking of the dead man in front of them. 

 

\---

 

Dean sipped listlessly at his bitter coffee and watched his partner, who was curled up in her chair like she wanted to hide from the world.

“Did you find anything?” He asked tiredly, wanting more than anything to go home and curl up with Cas and lose himself in the other man’s beautiful blue eyes.

“What do you mean?” Charlie asked, rubbing her tired eyes.

“On the transplant angle.”

“Oh. Oh!” Charlie straightened up, nearly falling off her chair. “I did! Hang on”

She dug through the mess on her desk, dislodging multiple brightly colored post its.

Finally she found the file she was searching for and pulled it out.

“Here we are. Bela Talbot, new kidney. Adam Milligan, heart. Pamela Barnes, corneas. All of them from the same donor.”

Dean frowned. It had been a wild goose chase, or so he’d thought, but here Charlie was giving him a connection.

“Who?” he demanded, breathless.

“Gabriel Novak.” Charlie reported, not looking up from her file.

The world spun to a stop.

 

“Who?” Dean demanded and slowly Charlie raised her head. 

“Gabriel Novak” she said again.

Dean’s brain started working in overdrive.

“I need to talk to Cas” he said as he scrambled for his phone, which was charging on the desk. In his haste he knocked it onto the floor, and then banged his head against the underside of the desk as he dove down to get to it.

There was a picture forming in his head, and he didn’t like it one bit.

“Dean” Charlie’s hand on his shoulder stopped him cold. “Don’t keep me out of the loop. What’s the connection?”

Dean licked his lips, standing up swiftly with the phone in his hand. The charger dangled uselessly.

“Gabriel had a thing with Sam. Cas found a book. He broke his heart.” he said, words nearly tumbling over each other in their haste go get out. “Three people have received organs from him after he died. Jessica was the new girlfriend.”

“Dean. Dean what about my mom?” Charlie frowned at him, not clearly buying it. “She didn't get any organs.”

“But she was in limbo.” Dean scrambled to make his thoughts clear to her, as clear as they were in his mind.

 

“No, listen to me. Sam was indecisive, wouldn’t choose between Gabriel and Jessica. Your mom was in limbo. It adds up!”

“Adam and Michael had an affair!” Charlie cried as she finally got with the program, “they were lustful!” Then she went on, excited:

“Jessica punished for gluttony. A common prejudice against diabetics!” Dean nodded eagerly.

“And she probably wanted to keep Sam to herself, that’s kind of gluttony too.” Charlie’s face was bright as her brain started working almost faster than Dean’s. 

“Bela was greedy. Pamela a heretic. It all  _ fits! _ ” Dean cried.

 

“This is one of the craziest things you’ve ever talked me into” Charlie said, “but you’re right - everything ties back to Gabriel!”

Then she frowned.

“What about Cas?”   
“What about him?” Dean didn’t understand.

“Cas is an expert on Dante.” Charlie said, her excitement turning serious. “He’s lost his brother. He’s grieving. All these people tie to both Gabriel and Dantre. What if-”

“No way. Cas is innocent.” Dean replied with conviction.

“You don’t know that, Dean.” Charlie was worried, her eyes large and anxious.


	11. Chapter 11

Castiel looked so small on the other side of the kitchen table as Charlie and Dean flanked him. His shirt was wrinkled and his cheeks were stained with tears that still hung in his eyelashes. He looked so lost it was all Dean could do not to take him into his arms and soothe his pain away.

“I don’t know what to say” he protested quietly. “I had nothing to do with this, I promise.”

“You need to convince us, Cas” Dean said and Charlie added,

“It adds up a little too well.”

“When did you find the book?” Charlie asked after a moment of silence. The book in question lay on the table between them, open to the page where Gabriel had drawn the wood of suicides.

“Yesterday” Castiel rubbed his eyes, impossibly tired and worn. He just wanted to go to bed. Preferably with Dean, so he could lose himself in the other man if only for a few moments, forgetting his grief.

“How are we to believe you?” Dean asked, not wanting to voice the question but knowing that he had to.

“I don’t know. But it’s the truth” Cas replied, frustrated. “I had no idea about anything until I found the book yesterday. Gabriel wasn’t…” he made an odd little noise. “He kept his secrets, you know? He didn’t talk to me much. Didn’t talk to anyone. Not even Anna. And they shared an apartment.”

 

Something clicked in Dean’s head. The picture, that had up until now been fuzzy, started to get clearer. 

“Anna” he repeated, dumbly.

“Yeah, Anna.” Castiel was clearly confused.

“Anna, who's a nurse. Anna, who works at the hospital. Anna, who shared an apartment with Gabriel.” Charlie saw where his thoughts were heading and picked up.

“She had the means and the motive. Her own car, coming and going as she pleased. If she had the book, she’d have known everything from the day he died.”   
Castiel stared at them blankly.

“What are you saying, detectives?”

“Where is Anna, Cas?” Dean replied, ignoring the question.

“I don’t know. She went out. Said she had something important to do.”

“When did she leave?”

“A few hours ago. I don’t know.”

Charlie and Dean exchanged looks. 

“Do you know who investigated the suicide?” Dean asked. “Someone must have, it’s procedure.”

“Some guy named Gordon. I remember him. I thought he was terribly rude.”

“Did Anna say anything about him?”

“She… she said he was cruel. But why…?”

Dean once more ignored his question. He turned back to Charlie.

“Where would she have gone?” He asked, and she made a helpless gesture.

“No idea.”

“Please tell me what’s going on” Castiel begged hopelessly.

“We think it’s Anna, Cas.” Dean said quietly and Castiel shook his head vehemently.

“No way, Anna isn’t a killer.” He protested desperately. “She’d never.”

“Where would she have gone?” Dean pressed. Castiel looked at them with wide, wet eyes.

“To the wood” he finally whispered.

“The wood?” Charlie asked, not understanding.

“The wood of suicides. It ends here, in the wood.” Dean replied, because he did understand. 

Castiel hid his face in his hands.

 

\---

 

Dean was out of the car and across the parking lot before he had time to switch of the ignition, something that had never happened before in all the years Charlie had known him. Cursing, she sprinted after him, but Dean had always been tougher than her and this time was no exception. He left her in the dust, taking the stairs up to the roof where Gabriel had jumped two steps at a time. 

When she at last stumbled through the door to the roof, wind whipping at her hair, she was so out of breath white spots danced before her eyes. But she could see enough, and what she saw made her blood run cold.

 

Anna stood on the ledge, arms wrapped so tightly around herself it was hard to see where they ended. Her tan coat whipped around her thin legs, and her face was nearly completely obscured by her greasy hair. Dean was approaching slowly, not daring to startle her.

“Anna?” He called, in a tone that Charlie had only heard him use a few times. Usually when talking to kids. “Anna, please come down.”

“I can’t find him, Dean!” Anna sobbed as she started to pace the ledge. Dean stopped moving immediately, holding his hands up as if to placate the woman who still had her back to him. Charlie carefully edged closer on shaking legs.

 

“Who can’t you find, Anna?” Charlie wheezed, trying to get a grip of herself. There was something here she wasn’t seeing, wasn’t understanding.

“Gabriel!” Anna’s voice was so fraught with despair it made Charlie’s eyes sting with tears.

“Anna” Dean walked forward slowly again. “Please, this isn’t right. Gabriel isn’t here, Anna.”

“Yes he is!” She screamed, spinning around to look at the two police officers with wild eyes. “You saw his book! It was all in there!”

 

That’s when Charlie finally made the connection.

“Hell” she breathed.

“Yes!” Anna cried, “hell! My beautiful, wonderful brother. He doesn’t deserve this!”

Dean threw a helpless glance at Charlie. As if she had better chances at talking Anna down than him. Maybe she did.

“Anna” Charlie tried, wetting her lips, “Please, Gabriel isn’t here.”

“You read the book!” Anna wailed, turning back to the unending emptiness just a few steps in front of her. Her sobs broke Charlie’s heart.

 

“When… when he died” Anna went on, speaking more to herself than anyone else, “god… I thought I’d go mad. I found his book. All his pain. I read it. The despair. That bastard-” Her face twisted in rage.

“Sam broke his heart” Dean whispered, eyes somewhere far away. Charlie thought of the pictures in the book. How happy the men in the pictures had looked.

 

“I should have been there” Anna lamented, “As he… he was crying himself to sleep every night. Trying to rock the pain from his body. I should have… I should have held him tight. I should have wiped away his tears.” She sobbed, desperately. “And then… He… I heard his voice. It was so far away at first, so lost… ‘save me’ he said.”

“That wasn’t Gabriel. That was grief,” Charlie protested futilely.

Anna whirled on them again, furious and despairing.

“You think I can’t hear him, my brother, well I can! I can hear him now! I just- I can’t find him!”

“This is not hell!” Dean yelled, desperation making him angry. “We’re not in the wood of suicides!”

“He killed himself!” Anna howled like a furious angel. “The moment the violent soul departs-”

“No!” Charlie interrupted. She had to say something, stop this situation from getting even more out of hand. “Please, Anna, I never got to know him, but I heard stories. So many stories. And I know this - Gabriel is an angel.”

 

The woman on the ledge looked at her without comprehending her words.

“What I was in life, I am still dead.” Charlie went on hurriedly. “Dante said it better than I can. Gabriel was… he was kind, and generous, and loving and- and if Dante was right about the woods, then he is right about that too! And then- then Gabriel is an angel. He is the most beautiful creature the heavens hold.”

Anna’s face brightened briefly through her tears.

 

“Gabriel’s an angel” she said, more to herself than to them.

“That’s right” Charlie smiled back at her. “He’s an angel. A beautiful, wonderful angel. Please, please come down Anna, Gabriel loves you, he doesn’t want this.” Anna’s face darkened again.

“Gabriel is dead” she said dully. “He killed himself. I had to find him, save him. He doesn’t deserve to suffer.”   
“And the people you killed?” Dean had finally found his voice. “What about them? Their suffering?” 

“I didn’t kill them” Anna sneered. “They were dead already. I just met them along the way.” she shook her head firmly. “I had to make sure I found Gabriel.”

Her face twisted again, more tears slipped from her eyes. “I journeyed so far, but I can’t find him!” She started pacing again, and Charlie’s heart stuttered with fear. The woman before them was a murderer, but still Charlie wanted little more than to hold and comfort her.

 

“Anna-” she pleaded.

And then, something happened that Charlie was going to remember for the rest of her life.

Anna’s face lit up in the most beautiful smile she had ever seen. 

“I knew he was here!” She cried in delight.

And before either Charlie or Dean could react, Anna threw her arms wide and took one step back, straight out into nothingness.

Dean howled in denial as he threw himself forward, hands outstretched to stop the inevitable.

He was too late.

 

\---

 

* * *

 

Epilogue

 

Charlie wasn’t any good at this sort of thing, she realised as she adjusted the pants of her suit. There’d been  wine served, and she’d had at least one glass too many. But this was a funeral, and she felt horribly out of place. There were few people there, sitting or standing around somberly as if they didn’t want to be there, not wanting to associate with the woman whose wake this was.

Taking a deep breath, she made her way over to where an old man sat, staring at nothing with a lost look on his face.

“Mr Novak” she began carefully, “My name is Charlie Bradbury. I just want to say how sorry I am for your loss.”   
Chuck Novak looked up slowly. In the short time since Anna’s death he’d aged at least twenty years.

“Thank you” he replied tiredly, his eyes sliding past her to the photo of his daughter, standing on a small oak table with a lit candle on each side.

Charlie moved to the couch standing right next to the chair, trying to smile encouragingly at Dean, who looked uncomfortable, and Cas, who looked as lost as his father. Dean had his arm around Cas’ shoulders, clearly offering comfort.

“I’m so sorry” she told them, and Dean gave her a grateful smile. Cas just nodded, distractedly, as if he wasn’t quite aware of her presence.

“Thank you” Dean said, squeezing Castiel’s shoulders.

“How’re you holding up?” Charlie asked, careful.

“One day at a time” Dean replied, drawing a deep, heavy breath. “One day at a time.”

Charlie nodded. Thought of Jo, whom was taking her to the graveyard later. It was weird, but she wanted to introduce the other woman to her mum. 

“One day at a time” she repeated.

She could understand that.


End file.
